














filass 1 

N TO 3 

Rnnk 

• f?’T’ 

Copyright N° 

iCjZJa. 


CDEffilGIJLT DEPOSIT. 






















- 








. 










































































































Fifty Years 

OF 

Iron and Steel 




























JOSEPH G. BUTLER, 


Jr. 


















Fifty Years of Iron 

I 

and Steel 

BY 

JOSEPH G BUTLER, Jr. 

n 

An address delivered at the Thirteenth General Meeting 
of The American Iron and Steel Institute in Cincinnati, 
Ohio, October 26, 1917, togeth er with additional data con¬ 
cerning the early use of iron and steel, a brief historical 
reference to the formation and organization of the United 
States Steel Corporation, and some facts concerning the 
American Steel Industry and the World War. Embellished 
with portraits of men who have been and are now most 
distinguished in the development of American Iron and 
Steel Industries, and interesting reproductions and illus¬ 
trations depicting the earlier conditions in these industries. 



THE PENTON PRESS 
CLEVELAND 
1920 



Two Hundred copies of this edition have 
been printed of which this 
is number 




COPYRIGHT, 1919 


JOSEPH G. BUTLER, Jn. 



JUL 12 1^2: 

©CI.A617643 


'IvO / 


Author s Note on Fifth Edition 


The Fourth Edition of this work, issued in 1919, 
was expected to satisfy the demand for it. This has not 
been the case, and a Fifth Edition appeared necessary. 

It is gratifying to find that during the time which 
the Fourth Edition has been in the hands of its readers, 
largely persons interested in and familiar with the 
subject, they have offered no suggestions requiring any 
changes in the text. This Fifth Edition is, therefore, 
practically a reprint of the Fourth Edition. It will be 
limited to 200 copies and will be distributed principally 
among libraries and persons who have asked for a 
copy of the book. 










CONTENTS 

Page 

Fifty Years of Iron and Steel. 1 

Made Iron Without Coke. 4 

Bessemer Process Begins Era of Steel. 6 

Mushet’s Discovery. 10 

Furnace Sets Production Mark. 17 

Old Stacks Picturesque. 19 

Coal Caused Valley Development. 27 

Early Development of Coke as Fuel. 30 

Lake Superior Ores. 37 

Improvement in Handling Ores. 44 

Iron and Steel Industry in the South. 46 

Development of Steel. 56 

Wellman Developed the Open-Hearth. 70 

Tariff Plays an Important Part. 72 

Broad Vision of Leadership. 78 

The United States Steel Corporation. 80 

Friends Who Have Made Good. 92 

The Kaiser Miscalculated. 97 

Supplement (Appendix). 99 

Addenda. 103 

Early History of the Use and Manufacture of Iron and Steel. 106 

American Steel in the World War. 119 

The Call to Duty. 146 

Our Pledge. 148 

Iron and Steel Industries in War Work and Financing. 150 


























LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 

Joseph G. Butler, Jr.Frontispiece 

James Ward, Builder of First Rolling Mill in Ohio. 3 

William Kelly, Original Discoverer of Pneumatic Process. 7 

Kelly Steel Converter. 9 

Sir Henry Bessemer, For Whom Bessemer Process was Named.. 11 

Hon. David Tod, Civil War Governor of Ohio. 13 

David Thomas, Inventor of Thomas Hot Blast.. 15 

Old Spearman Furnace at Sharpsville, Pa. 16 

Furnace Erected in 1830 at Farrandsville, Pa. 18 

Samuel M. Felton, One of the Founders of the Pennsylvania Steel 
Co. 21 

Old Furnace at Baileys, in Pennsylvania. 22 

An Abandoned Iron Furnace, Easton, Pa. 25 

First Mill for Rolling Boiler Plates. 26 

James Kennedy, “Big Jim,” an Old Time Furnace Man. 29 

Henry Clay Frick, Whose Strength of Purpose, Integrity, and 
Ability Have Been Felt Throughout America’s Great Industries 33 

John Fritz, Whose Many Inventions During a Long and Useful 
Life Had Much to do With the Progress of the American Iron & 

Steel Industries. 35 

Explosion Caused by Mesaba Ore. 36 

Capt. Eber B. Ward, Responsible for Construction of First Success¬ 
ful Bessemer Converter in America. 39 

Bill of Lading—First Shipment of Lake Superior Ore. 41 

Bill of Lading—First Shipment of Mesaba Ore. 43 

Julian Kennedy, An Engineering Genius. 47 

James M. Swank, Author and Statistician. 49 

Sir Lowthian Bell, Eminent English Metallurgical Engineer and 
Writer. 51 

Joseph Wharton, Founder of the Bethlehem Steel Co. 53 

William R. Jones (Captain Bill Jones), a Genius in Blast Furnace 
Practice. 55 

James Park, Jr., a Pioneer in the Manufacture of Crucible Steel.57 


























LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS—Continued 

Page 

Daniel J. Morrell, Pioneer of the Policy of Protection to American 

Industries. 59 

Andrew Wheeler, Treasurer of the American Iron & Steel Associa¬ 
tion. 61 

Benjamin Franklin Jones, Founder of the Jones & Laughlin Steel 
Co. 63 

Robert W. Hunt, Who Rolled First Order of Steel Rails. 65 

J. A. Campbell, President of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.. . 67 

Samuel T. Wellman, Pioneer in Steel Manufacture. 71 

Charles E. Smith, First Statistician of the American Iron Trade. . 73 

William McKinley, Twenty-fifth President of the United States. . 75 

James A. Farrell, President, United States Steel Corporation. 77 

Samuel Mather, Leading Spirit in the Development of Lake Superior 
Ore Industry. 79 

Hon. Elbert H. Gary, Foremost Figure in the Iron and Steel World 
Today. 81 

J. P. Morgan, The Most Eminent Financier of the Nineteenth Cen¬ 
tury . 83 

Andrew Carnegie, For Many Years a Dominant Figure in the Iron 
and Steel Industries. 85 

Chas. M. Schwab, A Most Interesting Figure in the American Iron 
and Steel Industries. 87 

Westerman Iron Company’s Rolling Mills, Sharon, Pa. 96 

Committee Appointed to Consider Duluth’s Claim to be Constituted 
a Basing Point for Steel Shipments, August, 1918. 121 

Powell Stackhouse, Who Earned High Reputation by Lifelong 
Service With the Cambria Iron and Cambria Steel Companies. . 123 

Charles A. Otis, Sr., Founder of the Otis Steel Company—Onetime 
Mayor of Cleveland—an Aggressive, Able and Practical Steel 
Manufacturer. 127 

Alexander Lyman Holley, Eminent Metallurgical Engineer. The 
Wonderful Development of the Bessemer Steel Process in Ameri¬ 
ca Was Largely Due to His Efforts. 131 

Henry Chisholm, One of the First Manufacturers to Successfully 
Develop the Bessemer Steel Process. 135 

J. Leonard Replogle, Whose Rapid Advancement Illustrates How 
Ability Wins in the Steel Business. 145 































INTRODUCTION 

By JOHN A. PENTON 


T O HAVE lived during a period of over sixty years of the world’s 
greatest accomplishment and to have been an eye-witness especially 
of the great development in this country’s iron and steel industry, 
should be almost glory enough. 

To have been, during this period, an active factor in this constructive 
work, at all times taking a leading part in all of the industry’s activities, 
makes the author of this paper a unique figure among American men 
of affairs—men who have done things. To have been an eye-witness 
of iron and steel development from the conversion of the first barrel of 
Lake Superior ore to a period when over sixty million tons come down 
the Lakes and other millions are smelted in the Upper Lake region, is 
something few have experienced. 

To have been connected with the pig iron industry when only six 
hundred thousand tons were made a year and be still connected with 
it when nearly forty million tons have been produced in this same period, 
is an honor that probably no one else can claim. 

And to have been in the industry contemporaneous with Sir Henry 
Bessemer, Andrew Carnegie, John Fritz, Edgar Thomson, and other 
great pioneers, and active long before the days of James M. Swank, 
E. H. Gary, Charles E. Schwab, James A. Farrell, Samuel Mather, 
W. L. Brown and other leaders of the present, and to be interested still 
in the steel production in a year when over forty-two million tons have 
been made, is something to talk about. 

But to be able also to look cheerfully and optimistically into the 
future and expect to be on the job helping to make a hundred million 
tons of steel a year and to tell about it in a way to charm and hold the 
reader as these pages do—why what’s the use—there is only one “Uncle 
Joe” in the steel industry. 








Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

By Joseph G. Butler, Jr. 

N HONORING me with a place on 
your program, the Committee evi¬ 
dently regarded half a century as 
long enough for any man to be 
actively engaged in the iron and 
steel industries. As a matter of fact 
my experience in them covers a period of sixty 
years, for I became shipping clerk and assistant 
manager at the Iron Rolling Mill of James 
Ward & Company, Niles, Ohio, in 1857, after 
having spent three years as a clerk in the store 
connected with that enterprise, during which 
time I added to my accomplishments the mus¬ 
ical art of speaking Welsh and also acquired 
the ambition to become an ironmaster. 

These sixty years cover the greatest progress 
the world has ever known. They have brought 
forth so many startling discoveries, so many 











Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


striking inventions, so many achievements en¬ 
riching and broadening human life, that merely 
to mention all of them would be a tedious task. 
Most of these were the work of American genius. 
They are the fruits of individual liberty and just 
reward for individual effort first known to the 
world after our forefathers had established free¬ 
dom in enduring form upon this Continent. The 
mere contemplation of this progress should 
serve to remind us of our obligations at this 
time, when civilization is turning the sharpest 
corner in its history, and when the right of men 
to self-government and self-development is 
threatened as it has never been threatened 
before. 

Sixty years ago there was no such thing as 
the steel business in America. The trifling pro¬ 
duction of “blister'’ steel, amounting to a few 
thousand tons per year, was not worthy of that 
designation, but the iron business had already 
laid the foundations of its future greatness, and 
this in spite of the fact that we had then com¬ 
paratively no ores, no efficient fuel, no adequate 
machinery and very little of the practical and 
scientific knowledge so widely diffused today. 





JAMES WARD 

With William Ward and Thomas Russell, he Built at Niles 
in 1841, the First Rolling Mill in the State of Ohio. 









Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

MADE IRON WITHOUT COKE 

When I entered the iron business, we made 
iron without coke—a task resembling that of 
the Hebrews who were compelled to make 
bricks without straw. We had what would now 
be considered no ore, for the chief supply was 
derived from an occasional pocket in the hills 
or gathered from swamps or the beds of creeks. 
We had no furnace tops, no blast stoves, no hot 
blast as we know it now, no metallurgists, and 
in the light of the present experience, no markets. 
We knew nothing of the value of gas, natural 
or manufactured, a fuel indispensable in the 
manufacture of iron and steel in large quanti¬ 
ties, but we did have grit and energy—the de¬ 
termination to do our best, and the same pride 
in doing things that we have now. 

There were some compensations, of course. 
The payrolls were not so large and we were not 
troubled with a shortage of cars to move our 
product. I recently came across a statement 
issued by the superintendent of the Ward fur¬ 
nace, operated under lease at Youngstown, about 
the time of my entrance into the iron business. 
It reads as follows: 


4 




Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


Youngstown, Ohio, August 25, 1S53. 
Messrs. James Ward & Company, 

Xients. 

Below you have the furnace proceeds for last week: 


Cf 

larges 

Coal 

Ore 

Lime 

Aug. 13 

90 

400 

480 

160 

14 

84 

« 

U 

U 

15 

87 

u 

a 

a 

16 

87 

u 

u 

a 

17 

84 

u 

u 

a 

18 

84 

u 

u 

u 

19 

81 

a 

a 

u 


597 

118M 143 

48 


Our next payroll will amount to 
have at least $20 in cash. Yours, < 


7 H 
7 

ey 2 

7 

5y 2 3300 

6 y 2 1500 

metal 4800 casting 

>mething like $200. We ought to 
etc. 

James Cochran, Superintendent. 


PAID MEN IN GOODS 

The payroll referred to was for one month. 
The cash was needed to give some of the men a 
little money for some special purpose. As a 
rule, they were paid in store goods. Among 
some other furnace records of these days I have 
seen an entry reading: 

‘"Paid James Dobson six dollars to git 
married”. 

At some of the furnaces in that locality it 
was the custom to give the men a dollar in cash 
at Christmas and the Fourth of July. At other 
times they got along without any money. Prom 



Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

all of which it will be seen that many things, 
among them getting married and running a 
blast furnace, were done with less capital than 
at the present time. 

There was at that time no thought of making 
steel at the ordinary iron works. The equip¬ 
ment consisted of one or more small heating 
furnaces, one or two trains of rolls, perhaps a 
forge fire or two, a few puddling furnaces and 
occasionally some machinery for making cut 
nails. The product was usually either simply 
pig iron, or merchant bars, a commodity which, 
by the way, has not changed its name in the 
whole 250 years since iron was first formed by 
forging into that shape. 

BESSEMER PROCESS BEGINS ERA OF STEEL 

The steel business was really born in Ameri¬ 
ca when the Bessemer process came into use here, 
which was not until about 1864. The idea of 
removing carbon and silicon from blast furnace 
iron in this way was undoubtedly first con¬ 
ceived by an American, although he failed to 
develop the machinery for its use, and, as a 
consequence, reaped very little benefit from it. 
When William Kelly, who first decarburized 


6 



WILLIAM KELLY 

Original Discoverer of the Pneumatic Process for 
Converting Iron Into Steel. 







Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

iron by means of an air blast in a furnace he 
had erected for that purpose at Eddyville, Ky., 
about 1850, came to file his claim for a patent 
in 1856 he found that Henry Bessemer had filed 
similar claims and been granted patents a few 
days previously. Kelly had worked for years 
on his scheme, which was identical in principle, 
but he had not yet made it a commercial success 
and did not attempt to make steel in that man¬ 
ner. Nevertheless, his use of the pneumatic 
process first was not disputed and he was granted 
an interference as against the Bessemer patent. 

I can distinctly recall a visit made by this 
man to Niles while I was a member of the Ward 
family, being employed in the Ward store, about 
1854. He came there to enlist the interest of 
James Ward, then regarded as an authority 
on the iron question, in behalf of his experiments, 
and was a guest at the Ward table on several 
occasions. How far he succeeded in his errand 
may be judged by the fact that Mr. Ward said 
after he left that he was crazy. 

The invention of the Bessemer process, or 
rather its perfection and development, is gen¬ 
erally regarded as the longest single step in the 
march of progress that has brought the iron 


8 



The First Pneumatic Converter Used in the United States. Photographed 
on the Lawn of the Cambria Steel Company Offices in 
Johnstown, Pa., Where It is Pre¬ 
served as a Curiosity. 












Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

and steel industries to their present stage, but 
there are other discoveries that seem to me even 
more important. We cannot make steel with¬ 
out iron, and, therefore, of even more moment 
than this invention were such things as the dis¬ 
covery of the Lake Superior ore ranges, the in¬ 
vention of the furnace top, the use of coke and 
its economical manufacture, the development of 
high blast temperatures, and especially in view 
of its recent rapid adoption, the Siemens-Martin 
open-hearth furnace. 

All of the various steps in these improvements 
have been made during the time in which I was 
greatly interested in them and it has been my 
pleasure and privilege to follow them closely 
and to know something of the trials and dis¬ 
appointments undergone by men who conceived 
and brought them to perfection, or rather to 
their present state; for it is entirely probable 
that future generations will continue the work 
with the same zest and at least part of the 
success that has attended it so far. 

RECALLS MUSHET’s DISCOVERY 

As has been stated, I met Mr. Kelly when 
he was trying to make his great discovery 


10 





SIR HENRY BESSEMER 
For \\ hom the Bessemer Steel Process was Named 




Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


a practical success. I saw him on a number of 
occasions later, when he was working to unravel 
the skein of litigation that tied up the Bessemer 
process and prevented its adoption in this coun¬ 
try until ten years after it was patented here. 
I can recall the announcement in the technical 
journals of that day of the discovery by Robert 
Mushet, a Scotchman, that spiegeleisen would 
recarburize iron blown in a converter and thus 
produce steel. We did not know of this in 
America for some time after Mushet’s patents 
were granted in England, which was in the latter 
part of 1856. Up to that time Kelly did not 
suspect that he had found a new way to make 
steel, and had urged his process on iron manu¬ 
facturers only as a cheap and rapid method of 
purifying iron for rolling mills, claiming that it 
would take the place of puddling — something it 
has, by the way, never done. 

Likewise I was privileged to watch every 
step in the development of the hot blast. At the 
Ward furnace at Niles, and in other furnaces in 
the Valley, the blast was heated by passing it 
through cast iron pipes, and these lasted but a 
short time, their renewal and replacement keep¬ 
ing the local foundries busy and interfering 


12 




HON. DAVID TOD 

Pioneer in the Manufacture of Iron and Mining of Coal in 
the Mahoning Valley. Pioneer Railroad Builder. 
Civil War Governor of Ohio. 






Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


seriously with continuous operation. We had 
what we called a hot blast, but it was really 
only warm in comparison with modern practice. 
The furnaceman tested its temperature with lead 
and zinc, strips of which were inserted at the 
point where it entered the furnace. If the blast 
melted lead it was not quite hot enough, and 
if it melted zinc it was too hot, so we believed, 
and would burn the iron. Between the melt¬ 
ing point of lead and that of zinc, as we now 
know, there is a very considerable difference, so 
that our wind varied about as much in tempera¬ 
ture as it did in pressure. If you reflect that 
the blast in those days was blown usually by 
an engine that had been worn out on a Missis¬ 
sippi River steamboat, and that it was the usual 
thing for the men about a furnace to operate the 
walking beam when the engine broke down, 
you will have some light on the strength and 
steadiness of the hot blast of that day. 

It was about 1868 that the Player hot blast 
stove was brought from England to this country. 
It was a decided improvement. This stove in¬ 
troduced an innovation in being located on the 
ground instead of at the tunnel-head. The first 
stove to employ the regenerative principle was 


14 



DAVID THOMAS 

Inventor of the Thomas Hot Blast. Made the First Pig . 
Iron with Anthracite Coal as Fuel. 




Old Spearman Furnace at Sharpsville, Pa., Now Shenango Valley Furnace Co. 














Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

the W hitwell stove, and it was lined with fire¬ 
brick, also a new idea. Both it and the Player 
stoves immediately increased the output of 
furnaces and made larger stacks possible, al¬ 
though it was many years before they sup¬ 
planted the old Thomas stoves at many Ameri¬ 
can furnaces. 

The use of furnace gas for heating the blast 
in this country we owe to the Germans, the 
first effort to bring these gases down and burn 
them under stoves and boilers in America hav¬ 
ing been made by C. E. Detmold, a German 
engineer, residing in New York about 1850. 
The new plan cost a good deal of money and was 
slowly adopted for that reason. We did not 
get to it in Ohio for some years after it was used 
in the East. I recall very distinctly the first 
furnace top installed at Youngstown. It was 
thought highly dangerous by the workmen, and 
there was at first some difficulty in getting them 
to work around the stack. 

FURNACE SETS PRODUCTION MARK 

With the use of better stoves and the intro¬ 
duction of more powerful blowing engines, fur¬ 
naces began to grow in size and more attention 


17 



Iron Furnace Erected at Farrandsville, Pa., in 1830. 

































Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

was paid to their lines. It was realized that 
much improvement could be made in the out¬ 
put, and progress in this direction was rapid. 
By 1875 it was known that blast furnaces could 
be operated successfully up to eighty feet in 
height, and, with coke for fuel and proper equip¬ 
ment for blowing and heating the blast, could 
be made to yield much larger product than had 
been expected up to that time. But it was 
not until about 1880 that one of these larger 
furnaces reached an output much above 100 
tons per day. This was the Isabella, located at 
Etna, near Pittsburg. During three years— 
1881, 1882 and 1883—this furnace produced an 
average of 1090 tons per week—the best ever 
done by a blast furnace up to that time in this 
or any other country. 

OLD STACKS PICTURESQUE 

To those who have had experience only with 
the present day blast furnace and modern fur¬ 
nace practice, it is impossible to portray the 
conditions surrounding our industry at the time 
when I first became interested in it. The old 
stack of those days with its equipment, would be 
picturesque in the extreme if it could be set in 


19 





Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


the vicinity of a modern steel works. The stack 
was usually about thirty-five feet in height and 
built of masonry, lined on the inside with a poor 
quality of fire-brick. It was square in section, 
on the outside, the bottom being about twenty- 
four feet each way and the top somewhat smaller, 
this depending on the ideas of the man who 
designed it. The stack was usually located 
against a bluff, the double purpose being to make 
construction cheaper by using the hill to reinforce 
one side and to enable a patient mule to perform 
the functions of a skip hoist by dragging the 
ore to the top of the hill. A short bridge 
connected the stockhouse with the stack and the 
material charged was wheeled from this point 
and dumped in at the open top. 

Only one or two tuyeres were used, and these 
were often on the same side of the stack, next 
to the blowing engine. In front was the sand 
bed, into which the iron was run, and to one side 
the space reserved for roasting the ores. No 
water cooling devices were used except at the 
tuyeres and the opening in front. It was a 
very small proposition compared with what we 
are used to at this time, but was, nevertheless, 
a source of general public interest and regarded 


20 



SAMUEL M. FELTON 

A Pioneer in the Manufacture of Steel. One of the Founders of The 

Pennsylvania Steel Company. 











Old Furnace at Bailey’s, in Pennsylvania 


















Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

with considerable awe by the uninitiated. I can 
recall the first furnace in our district whose 
builders had nerve to locate it away from a hill. 
They used a hoisting device in which a tank 
filled with water raised the platform on which 
two wheelbarrows loaded with ore had been 
placed. When the barrows were dumped they 
were wheeled back on the platform, the water 
was let out of the tank at the other end of the 
rope, and they came down to be refilled. 

The blowing engines were of the crudest type 
and had but little power. There was then no 
method of gauging the pressure accurately and 
this was one of the cares of the furnace boss. 
He was expected also to know when the furnace 
was ready to cast, the proper color of the iron, 
and a great many other things. As a rule he 
did know these things better than might be ex¬ 
pected, and these old furnaces made good iron 
even if they did not make much of it. 

Even this type of furnace was a great im¬ 
provement over those in use in that locality 
forty years earlier, for they used the “trompe” or 
water blast, which was, you may be sure, some¬ 
what removed from the Gayley Dry Blast. Ihis 
was a contrivance by which a waterfall was 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

made to carry air into a box, compressing it in 
the top, from which it was carried to the furnace 
through a small pipe. 

It is a curious circumstance that the first 
furnace erected by the Carnegie Steel Company 
was one torn down at Escanaba and taken to 
Pittsburg. It had been erected in Michigan to 
be near the ore fields, but its owners found that 
the problems of transportation could not be 
solved in that way alone. 

Scattered all over the Eastern States can 
be found the ruins of once ambitious efforts to 
make iron cheaply by locating furnaces close 
to the ore. Some of the most pathetic failures, 
however, were furnaces placed, as their builders 
believed, close to both ore and fuel, and even 
to transportation. In the Juniata Valley and 
the Alleghany Mountains are many of these 
monuments to the realization that the problems 
of transportation are of great importance in the 
iron industry. These old stacks, built to defy 
the ravages of time, were placed where ore had 
been found and where wood was abundant for 
the making of charcoal. Most of them were 
built after the construction of the Pennsylvania 
Canal and the Old Portage Railroad, both huge 


24 



An Abandoned Iron Furnace in Eastern Pennsylvania. 
The Tree Growing Out of One Side Best 
Indicates the Age of the Stack. 





















The First Mill for Rolling Boiler Plates in America, built and Operated by the Lukens Iron & Steel Co., Coatesville, Pa. 













Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


enterprises for their day. But the canal has 
disappeared, the famous old railroad is nothing 
but a memory, and these hollow structures of 
stone remain as mute witnesses of the fallibility 
of human calculations and the certainty of that 
change which is the seed of all progress and which 
is continually building on the ruins of the best 
efforts of men better things than those of which 
they dream. Huge trees may be seen on the 
tops of some of these old furnaces and around 
their bases the forest leaves have buried frag¬ 
ments of pig iron, which precious as it was, had 
to be left behind in the rapid march of progress. 

COAL CAUSED VALLEY DEVELOPMENT 

About 1860 coke was regularly used as fuel in 
the Clinton furnace at Pittsburg, and within a 
few years it proved so efficient that all other 
fuels were practically eliminated except for mak¬ 
ing special grades of iron. When I first became 
interested in the furnace business, all the stacks 
in the Mahoning Valley, as well as those in 
Hocking Valley, at Canal Dover and at several 
other points in Ohio, were using raw coal. It 
was to a rich deposit of black-band ore found 
underneath the coal at Mineral Ridge, near 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


Niles, and the equally important discovery at 
Brier Hill, in Youngstown, of coal making a 
fairly good fuel in its raw state, an almost nat¬ 
ural coke, that development of the iron business 
in the Mahoning Valley was due. This coal, 
very similar to the Scotch coal afterwards found 
in other parts of Ohio, was rich in carbon and 
low in ash, and in the hands of those who un¬ 
derstood it, made a better blast furnace fuel than 
had yet been found at its low cost. For years 
it was mined close to the stacks and hauled by 
mules. All of the ore, usually a mixture of 
black-band, kidney and bog ores, had to be 
roasted before charging, and this was done with 
wood and coal in great heaps near the furnaces. 
The output of the four furnaces then in opera¬ 
tion in that district was certainly not more than 
two hundred tons per week. From this has 
grown a business employing fifty blast furnaces 
and producing, during 1916, 6,923,938 tons of 
pig iron. From the few small rolling mill 
plants then in that neighborhood, have been 
evolved forty-six modern rolling mills, rolling 
almost four million tons of steel per year. 


28 



BIG JIM KENNEDY 
An Old Time Furnaceman 


















Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF COKE AS FUEL 

Owing to the advantage of this natural fuel, 
known as “Brier Hill” coal, we did not begin 
the use of coke in furnaces at Youngstown until 
1869, at which time the coal began to grow 
scarce. An Englishman employed about one 
of the furnaces had some years previously made 
coke by covering coal in a heap, and this was 
used on occasions when a furnace went cold, but 
the raw fuel, the coal, was the main dependence 
until about the date mentioned, when we began 
to use bee hive coke. 

The employment of coke as a blast furnace 
fuel was an advance of such importance that it 
is worth while to refer to it somewhat more 
comprehensively. It was known in Germany 
and England long before its use anywhere in 
America, where charcoal was at first relatively 
low in cost. The date and place where coke 
was first used in this country are not entirely 
certain, but it was possibly tried in several places 
at the beginning of the last century. A para¬ 
graph in a history of Fayette County, Pa., re¬ 
fers to the use of coke in Alleghany furnace, 
Blair County, in 1811. William Firmstone used 
it for a short time in a furnace in Huntington 


30 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

County, Pa., in 1835, but abandoned it later. 
There seems to be no doubt that he succeeded 
in making good gray iron with it at the date 
mentioned, but why he did not continue has 
never been recorded. In 1856, there were 
twenty-one furnaces in Pennsylvania and three 
in Maryland using coke, but, so far as is known, 
none west of these States. The census of 1850 
enumerates four furnaces as burning coke, and 
1860 twenty-one reported its use. In the next 
ten years the census people found only five more 
plants using coke, but it is probable there 
were many that did not report its use at that 
time. At any rate, by 1880, the census reports 
enumerated 149 stacks blowing on that fuel. 

Coke from that time on rapidly supplanted 
charcoal and all other fuels, including anthra¬ 
cite coal. It is now used almost exclusively. 
Out of 465 blast furnaces now in operation or 
building in this country, only forty use charcoal 
the others being fired with coke or, in a few in¬ 
stances with coke and coal mixed. The charcoal 
furnaces are chiefly small and of antiquated type, 
their output for 1916 having been only 372,411 
tons of iron as compared with 39,062,386 tons 
produced in coke or in coal and coke driven 


31 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

stacks. No new charcoal furnaces were reported 
building in 1916, but 17 coke furnaces, with 
an annual capacity of 3,151,000 tons, were under 
construction at the close of that year. 

It was my privilege to make the first contract 
for coke entered into by Mr. H. C. Frick, a man 
whose name must be always inseparable from 
the history of the coke industry in America, when 
he began the coke business on his own account, 
and I would be ashamed to tell you the price, 
as I think he would also. I bought the first 
coke used in the Mahoning Valley for a furnace 
at Girard then under my management. The 
exact date has escaped my memory, but it was 
in the late 60’s. This coke was used as a mix¬ 
ture with Brier Hill coal, and some coal was 
still used as a mixture until twenty years 
later, when we could no longer obtain it in 
satisfactory quantities. The mixture made 
what we thought then was a very satisfactory 
and economical fuel, the coal adding to the sur- 
plus gas production. 

I have bought many thousands of tons of 
good beehive coke at eighty-five cents per ton. 
The average selling price of the entire output 
of the country in 1880 was SI.99 per ton at ovens. 





HENRY CLAY FRICK 

Whose Strength of Purpose, Integrity and Ability have been 
Felt Throughout America’s Great Industries. 









Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

There were then 12,372 beehive ovens in oper¬ 
ation, and the production was 3,338,300 tons. 
Puring 1916, according to the estimates at hand 
—the exact figures not being available, the 
country’s entire production of coke was 
54,325,000 tons and of this 35.35 per cent 
was made in by-product ovens. Some coke 
was sold in 1917 as high as $15 per ton, surely a 
war price. 

Hardly less important for the country than 
the addition to furnace output resulting from 
the use of coke is the rapid development of the 
by-product industry. It has grown from 5.41 
per cent in 1901 to 35.35 per cent in 1916. No 
other single development has done so much to 
conserve the natural resources of America and 
none has more effectively indicated the energy, 
wisdom and public-spirit of the men at the head 
of our iron and steel plants. The erection of 
by-product plants involves huge expenditure, 
but they make large profits and save for future 
generations incalculable natural wealth. It is 
safe to predict that the wasteful beehive oven 
will soon take its place in the limbo of great 
mistakes, among the dust of ignorance, with 
many other things that were once hailed as 


34 




JOHN FRITZ 

Whose Many Inventions During a Long and useful 
Life Had Much to Do With the Progress of the 
American Iron and Steel Industries. 











A Furnace Explosion at Sharpsville, Pa., Caused by Mesaba Ore in the Early Days of Its Use. 
















Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

great discoveries and thought to be the limit 
of human knowledge. 

LAKE SUPERIOR ORES 

The development of the Lake Superior ore 
deposits has exercised on the iron and steel in¬ 
dustries of the world an influence more far- 
reaching than any other incident in their his¬ 
tory. Previous to that time furnaces and iron 
works had been located in many places where 
ore and fuel could be found. But the time had 
come when such resources were inadequate to 
meet the growing needs of the country. Per¬ 
haps it would be more accurate to say that the 
time had come when the further progress of 
civilization demanded iron ore in quantities and 
at a cost hitherto undreamed of. There is no 
question that, from the time of the discovery 
of the Mesaba Range, civilization and progress 
received a tremendous impulse from the cheaper 
iron and steel it made possible. From this time 
it became evident that the production of these 
commodities had to be on an enormous scale, 
and that the day of the small furnace was at 
an end. It became evident also, that hence¬ 
forth the industries must be confined to those 


37 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

localities where ore and fuel could be assembled 
in vast tonnages at low cost, and markets reached 
with the greatest facility. The first effect of 
this discovery was to practically limit the pro¬ 
duction of iron and steel in large tonnages to 
regions most accessible to great ore and fuel 
deposits. The Pittsburg and Youngstown dis¬ 
tricts had no rival in this respect except, per¬ 
haps, the Atlantic coast district, where the rich 
ores of Cuba and South America were available 
at equal distance from the Connellsville coke 
field. Even this district is now suffering from 
the accidental dislocation of ocean freight serv¬ 
ice and is glad to get ores from Lake Superior, 
which have no equal in low cost and purity. 

Unfortunately I am not able to give the cost 
of ore at the furnaces of early days. The rec¬ 
ords then kept were imperfect in this respect 
and the dollar did not mean the same thing as 
it does now. But it was very high, in spite of 
the exceedingly low price of other commodities, 
and must have varied greatly at different fur¬ 
naces, depending on whether it was mined from 
rich deposits or from those where it was poor 
in quality and limited in quantity. 

The honor of discovering the ore deposits 
near Lake Superior is variously claimed. Some 


38 



CAPT. EBER B. WARD 

Chief Owner of the Plant at Wyandotte, Mich., and Re¬ 
sponsible for the Construction of the First Suc¬ 
cessful Bessemer Converter in America. 











Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

writers credit it to Government engineers who 
noticed a variation of the magnetic needle and 
investigated the cause. Others state that the 
Indians had found the ores and reported large 
masses of “iron stone” in that locality. I am 
inclined to think the honor belongs to Philo 
M. Everett who, in 1845, located the Marquette 
Range in company with Indian guides. 

The various ranges were opened for shipment 
of ore in the following order: 


Marquette.1850 

Menominee.1870 

Gogebic.1884 

Vermilion.1884 

Mesaba.1892 

Michipicoten.1900 

Baraboo.1904 

Cuyuna.1911 


The first regular shipments in cargo down 
the lakes began somewhat later than the dates 
mentioned for all these ranges. That from the 
Marquette was in 1856, the opening of the Sault 
Ste. Marie Canal in that year having made possi¬ 
ble cargoes large enough for that day, although 
they would seem insignificant at this time. The 
total shipments by water from this region in 
1856 were only 7,000 tons, about half enough 


40 











Reproduction of Bill of Lading First Shipment of Lake 
Superior Ore. Loaned by Oglebay, Norton & Co. 




Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

to make a cargo for a modern ore boat. This 
ore was valued at $28,000. In 1856 first-class 
“specular” or “hard” ore from the Marquette 
Range brought $7 per ton on the docks at Cleve¬ 
land. 

Up to 1908 all the ranges in the Lake Supe¬ 
rior region had produced a total of 407,060,116 
tons of ore. In 1912 their output had increased 
to 48,221,546 tons for that year alone, and in 
1916 it reached the grand total of 66,658,466 
tons—or 11,000,000 tons more than the entire 
production of the United States in 1915, ac¬ 
cording to the figures of the United States 
Geological Survey. 

In 1916 the Mesaba Range alone produced 

42,525,612 tons or almost 64 per cent, achieving 

* 

a record as the greatest source of iron ore on the 
globe. The Mesaba Range has led in production 
since 1895, and its development has revolu¬ 
tionized the iron and steel industries of America. 
Because the ore on this range can be mined 
with great economy, and because of its close 
proximity to the Lakes, it can furnish ore at a 
lower cost per ton of iron than any other part 
of the world where there are furnaces to smelt 
it. Equally rich and accessible deposits may 


42 




Reproduction of Bill Lading First Shipment of Mesaba Ore. 
Loaned by Oglebay, Norton & Co. 






Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

exist in India and South America, but it must 
be remembered that the tropics are not suited 
to the manufacture of iron, and it is not likely 
that anything equal to this range will be found 
within the temperate zones. Because of the 
conditions on the Mesaba Range we have learned 
to mine ore by stripping, even at a depth of 
300 feet, and this of itself has been a long step 
toward economy in the cost of production. 

IMPROVEMENT IN HANDLING ORES 

Following the development of the Mesaba 
Range came astounding improvements in the 
mining and transportation of ore which, together 
with the tremendous supply of the Lake Superior 
region, have had much to do with the phenom¬ 
enal growth of our iron and steel industries. 

When we began to use Lake Superior ores 
the ordinary cargo of a lake boat was 500 tons. 
It required several days to load and unload this 
cargo at every point where it had to be handled 
—four in all. The ore cars then in use carried 
only ten tons. When their capacity was in¬ 
creased to twenty-five tons and boats were built 
that would carry 1,000 tons, we thought our 
problems were solved. Now we have vessels 


44 



Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

loading as high as 12,000 tons at the upper ports 
in one or two hours with one or two men on 
the dock, and unloading their cargo directly 
into fifty-ton cars in about the same time, with 
practically no manual labor. 

In the old days men with shovels loaded the 
ore at the mines into small cars, from which it 
was transferred to railroad cars. They handled 
it again the same way four times before it 
reached the furnace, for even the hopper car 
had not then been invented. Aside from being 
the most laborious task to which a human back 
was ever bent, this was extremely costly and 
slow beyond your belief. Now we handle this 
vast tonnage entirely by machinery. Steam 
shovels mine the ore; it flows by gravity into 
great vessels; huge unloaders transfer it to rail¬ 
road cars, and car dumpers empty it under ore 
bridges—all the work being done by power and 
at a speed little short of miraculous. These things 
were all unknown a half-century ago. They 
are the product of the tireless brains and the 
unflagging energy of the men who have built our 
industries to their present colossal proportions. 

The improvements in blast furnace construc¬ 
tion and practice referred to in previous para- 


45 



Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


graphs had much of their inspiration from these 
changes in the method of handling ores. With 
them came changes in size, lines and equipment. 
These changes were most marked during the 
period between 1860 and 1890. In 1850 there 
were few furnaces in the country that could 
produce 150 tons of iron in a week, and the aver¬ 
age did not reach that figure until about 1865. 
In 1890 a furnace at the Edgar Thomson 
Works built under the design of Julian Kennedy 
and operated under the direction of Captain 
Bill Jones, startled the world by yielding 502 
tons of iron in one day and 2,462 tons in one 
week. That was then believed to be the limit 
of production, but it is now quite usual for 
stacks to exceed this figure, and there are a few 
producing 600 tons per day. 

In 1860 the total output of pig iron in the 
United States was 821,223 tons. In 1890 it 
had risen to 9,202,703 tons. During 1916 there 
were made in America 39,434,797 tons of furnace 
iron of all grades. 

THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTH 

The remarkable growth of Iron and Steel 
manufacture in the South deserves almost a 


46 



JULIAN KENNEDY 

To Whose Engineering Genius the World’s 
Progress Owes Much. 








Fifty Years of iron and Steel 

separate paper, but I understand it must only 
be a feature of my address. 

The subject has been treated by many 
writers: the late James M. Swank, E. A. Smith, 
Miss Armes of Birmingham and others. A 
paper read by James Bowron, at the long to be 
remembered meeting of the Institute in Birm¬ 
ingham, Alabama, is quite complete and should 
be read by everyone desiring to be thoroughly 
familiar with the Southern industry. 

It is somewhat difficult to differentiate the 
South metallurgically. Mason & Dixon’s line 
and all East of the Mississippi, except Florida, 
Mississippi and Louisiana, would probably in¬ 
clude it. 

Before the Civil War no iron was made in 
tEe South with mineral fuel, but charcoal fur¬ 
naces were quite common, as well as forges. 
As early as 1725 a furnace was built in Virginia 
on property owned by Captain Washington, 
brother of George Washington. The ruins of this 
furnace can still be seen. Small furnaces were 
in operation through the Eighteenth and Nine¬ 
teenth centuries. Ship-plates of exceptionally 
good quality were made in the South before the 
war from charcoal blooms. The war practi- 


48 




JAMES M. SWANK 

Author and Statistician. For More than Forty Years the 
Faithful Secretary and Guiding Spirit of The 
American Iron and Steel Association. 











Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

cally stopped all the manufacture of material. 
Some of the plants were taken over by the Fed¬ 
eral Government. Dating from the close of the 
Civil War a great deal of capital was invested 
in Alabama and Georgia, principally English 
money. 

Sir Lowthian Bell, a world-wide authority, 
visited this country with the British Iron and Steel 
Institute in 1890, and he said: “I will not say 
that Birmingham will furnish the world with 
iron, but I will say that she will eventually dic¬ 
tate to the world what the price of iron shall be”. 

Incidentally I might add that it was my good 
fortune to know Sir Lowthian Bell, he having 
visited the United States on several occasions. 
His work “Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelt¬ 
ing”, is a classic and should be in the library of 
every iron manufacturer today. 

To go into details of the developments 
through the South would occupy too much time. 
I think it safe to say, however, that the first 
real prosperity in the Southern industry as a 
whole, dates from the acquisition of the prop¬ 
erty of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad 
Company by the United States Steel Corpora¬ 
tion. It is believed by many in position to know 


50 



SIR LOVVTHIAN BELL 

An Eminent English Metallurgical Engineer and Writer. 
Author of “The Chemical Phenomena of Iron 
Smelting.” Father of Sir Hugh Bell. 










Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

that the purchase of this property at the time 
when it was acquired saved the nation from a 
most disastrous panic, or rather minimized the 
panic then in existence and eventually stopped it. 

The Roane Iron Co. built blast furnaces at 
Rockwood, Tenn., fully a half century ago and 
they are still in successful operation. This 
same company undertook the manufacture of 
Bessemer steel rails at Chattanooga but the ex¬ 
periment was a failure. Now that Open-hearth 
rails have practically supplanted Bessemer steel 
rails, it is interesting to report that the 
Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company is 
one of the largest manufacturers of Open-hearth 
steel rails in the United States. 

The Southern ore supply is practically with¬ 
out limit. Its iron contents are much lower 
than the Lake Superior ores but the South has 
the advantage of the coal, ore and flux being all 
in close proximity. 

It is interesting to note that General Sher¬ 
man, whose well known characterization of war 
has become fixed and emphasized in the minds of 
the whole world, built a rolling mill at Chatta¬ 
nooga in 1864 for the U. S. Government. This 
was used for rolling iron rails. Steel rails were 



JOSEPH WHARTON 

A Pioneer in the Manufacture of Iron and Steel in Eastern 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Founder of 
The Bethlehem Steel Company. 







Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

then unknown. Iron rails from all the roads 
in the South which were accessible to the North¬ 
ern armies were brought to this mill, cut up 
and made into piles with new puddle iron for 
heads, and rerolled into sections of from fifty to 
sixty-five pounds per yard. The manufacture 
of iron and open-hearth steel, and more partic¬ 
ularly pig iron, is today in a very prosperous 
condition throughout the South and I predict for 
the industries in that section increased prosperity. 

An additional word about Captain “Bill” 
Jones will not be out of place in this connection, 
since he was, in a sense, the South’s most nota¬ 
ble contribution to the progress of American 
iron and steel industries. Captain Jones was 
for a time one of the most important practi¬ 
cal men in the Carnegie plants. He was an 
inventor, and a manager of great ability. When 
the Civil War broke out he was employed at 
Chattanooga, Tenn., but on account of his 
Northern sympathies felt obliged to leave that 
section. He worked his way to Johnstown, 
going up the river on a steamboat. He was 
killed in a gas explosion at one of the 
Carnegie furnaces. Had it not been for his 
untimely death he might have become one of 


54 



WM. R. JONES (Capt. Bill Jones) 

A Genius in Blast Furnace Practice. A Martyr to His Zeal. 




Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

the country’s foremost steel men, as negotia¬ 
tions were under way at that time looking to 
his going to Youngstown as a partner in a steel 
plant being organized there. 

Captain Jones was not only an able practi¬ 
cal steel man, but he was also a gallant soldier, 
having served with distinction in the Civil War, 
from which he emerged as captain. 

DEVELOPMENT OF STEEL 

Naturally, the rapid development of the iron 
industry was closely followed by an equally 
impressive growth in the production of steel, 
and this was characterized by the same aston¬ 
ishing increase in the efficiency of machinery and 
methods for fabricating the product into the 
countless forms in which it is marketed today. 

It is uncertain when the first “blister” steel 
was made in America, but we know that up to 
1831 the annual output had been less than 2,000 
tons, and that little crucible steel had been made 
here. In 1860 we were still dependent on Europe 
for practically all of our steel requirements. The 
Bessemer process was then known, but as a dis¬ 
pute had arisen over its invention and an “in¬ 
terference” with the Bessemer patents had been 


56 



JAMES PARK JR. 


A Pioneer in the Manufacture of Crucible Steel 

























Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

granted to William Kelly, the process was not 
put into general use in this country until after 
1860. 

I have referred to Mr. Kelly’s visits to James 
Ward at Niles in connection with his invention. 
These occurred while I was a member of the 
Ward household, and the matter was discussed at 
the Ward table. On one of these visits Mr. Kelly 
was much exercised over the fact that he had 
neglected to patent his discovery, but still had 
great hopes that he would yet be able to reap 
the rewards of it, in spite of the fact that Besse¬ 
mer had been granted a patent a few days be¬ 
fore his application was filed. I cannot recall 
the date of this occurrence, but it must have 
been in 1857, as the patents were granted in 
this country in 1856. 

As a matter of fact, neither Bessemer nor 
Kelly is entitled to the honor of inventing the 
Bessemer steel process. Kelly had, years before 
Bessemer began his experiments, conceived the 
idea of decarburizing iron by a blast of air, and 
had actually used the process in the making 
of iron which he used and sold in place of that 
produced in the refinery and run out fires then 
employed. Sir Henry Bessemer conceived the 


58 



DANIEL J. MORRELL 

Pioneer of the Policy of Protection to American Industries 






Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

same idea and carried it out with a much more 
efficient mechanical appliance, which has been 
changed but little in general design to this day; 
but neither of these men were able to make 
steel. All they accomplished was to remove 
from pig iron the silicon and carbon. Robert 
Mushet was the man who first found out how 
to make Bessemer steel by recarburizing the iron 
after it has been blown in a converter. Kelly 
reaped very little benefit, also, but he will al¬ 
ways be regarded by Americans as the actual 
discoverer of the fundamental element in this 
great process, and the little converter which he 
had made at the Cambria Iron Works and used 
there with more or less success in 1861 and 
1862 is an enduring monument to the spirit of 
discovery and the persistent efforts which have 
made the steel business what it is. 

The manufacture of Bessemer steel did not 
attain any headway in this country until 1867, 
but when it did finally start, its results were 
tremendous. It built the railroads of the 
United States, as well as most of our sky¬ 
scrapers, bridges and ships, yet in spite of this 
fact, it now seems destined to give place to an 
older and more expensive process, that of the 


60 



ANDREW WHEELER 


Treasurer of The American Iron and Steel Association 








Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

open-hearth; and this in turn, will probably 
yield supremacy to the electric furnace, so rapid 
are the changes and so eager the industry to 
keep pace with modern knowledge and invention. 

No less remarkable are the changes that sixty 
years have witnessed in the fabrication of iron 
and steel. When I first entered the business 
the plant of my employer consisted of a small 
blast furnace, a refinery forge or two, and a 
mill upon which we rolled iron bars for various 
purposes. After the pig iron had been refined 
in the furnace—a process somewhat like that of 
puddling, it was rolled into muck bar. This 
was then made up into bundles, reheated and 
rolled on a primitive form of bar mill. My 
first contribution to the efficiency of the plant 
was a plan to regulate the size of these bundles 
so that they would produce a bar of the size 

( i ' ■ V - 

and length desired and thus eliminate excessive 
waste from scrap as each piece was rolled. It 
was recognized as a new idea and Mr. Ward 
complimented me highly. 

The first bar iron rolled in the United States 
was produced at Plumsock, Fayette County, Pa., 
in 1817. The first puddling in this country was 
done at the Boston Iron Works in 1825. The 


62 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JONES 

Founder of The Jones & Laughlin Steel Company. A 
Pioneer in the Development of Iron and 
Steel Manufacture in Pittsburgh. 















Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

first successful American blast furnace of which 
there is record was built at Lynn, Mass., in 1645. 

The first successful iron working plant in 
America seems to have been established at Lynn 
about the same time the first furnace was built. 
Only cast iron articles were produced at first, but 
a forge was started in 1648, or three years later. 

The first iron works in New York State were 
built at Ancram Creek about 1740. Soon after¬ 
wards a blast furnace was erected in the Ramapo 
Mountains, and before the Revolution this had 
been consolidated with a forge and operated 
under the name of the Sterling Iron Works. It 
was here that the anchors were forged for the 
first ships to fly the American flag, and here also 
that a great chain was made and stretched across 
the Hudson River to prevent British gunboats 
from passing West Point, in 1788. That chain 
still holds the honor of being the largest ever 
forged, a fact which shows that our ancestors 
could rise to great efforts when inspired by 
patriotism, even as we are doing today. 

I occasionally go into the blooming mills 
at the Brier Hill plant, where we break dcwn a 
steel ingot in less than a minute, and mentally 


64 



ROBERT W. HUNT 

A Noted Mechanical Engineer, who Rolled the First Com¬ 
mercial Order of Steel Rails Filled in this 
Country at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. 










Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


compare the massive machinery in use in mod¬ 
ern steel plants with the equipment of those 
days. Still we had achieved a good deal even 
then. The first successful rolling mill in this 
country was about as primitive compared with 
the equipment of sixty years ago as was the old 
Ward mill when compared with a modern 
rolling mill. 

The pioneers started with nothing. We had 
at least something to work with. Both they 
and we of this generation have made the best 
of our opportunities, and the result is the ma¬ 
jestic industry which today stands without a 
rival in the efficiency of its processes, in the zeal 
of its operatives, and in its far-reaching effect 
on human happiness and welfare. 

Much of this great progress has been un¬ 
doubtedly due to the men who have been en¬ 
gaged in the iron and steel business. In justice 
they must be given credit with a degree of 
enterprise found in no other industry. They 
have been willing at all times to face ruin for 
the sake of adventure into new and more prom¬ 
ising fields. They have rewarded courage, 
vision and genius as no other industry has re¬ 
warded these things. They have constantly 

6G 



J. A. CAMPBELL 

President of The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company. A 
Commanding Figure Among Executives who Have 
More Recently Achieved National Reputation. 








Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

looked forward to higher achievements, scorning 
the contentment that sometimes brings stagna¬ 
tion to a great industry. 

All of this progress, however, cannot be 
credited to the men of the industry. Some of 
it was undoubtedly due to the greatness of the 
country, the magnificence of our natural re¬ 
sources, and the enterprise of our people as a 
whole. In no other country, in the world, for 
instance, could there have been a demand for 
railroad expansion such as to require 500,000 
miles of steel rails in less than twenty years, as 

r 

was the case in this country between 1865 and 
1885. 

The first steel rail rolled in America from 
American steel was made at the North Chicago 
Rolling Mill on May 24, 1865, from steel ingots 
made at Wyandotte, Mich. The ingots were 
made under the direction of William F. Durfee 
who had built the first successful Bessemer 
converter at Wyandotte. Steel made in this 
converter was used in rolling the rail referred to. 
I was attending a meeting of the American Iron 
and Steel Association in Chicago at the time 
and went with the party that visited the works 
to see the operation repeated the following day. 


68 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

Three rails were rolled on each occasion, and a 

part of one of them was cut off and sent to the 

meeting, where it naturally attracted muchatten- 

tion. By 1890 more than 19,000,000 tons of 

steel rails had been rolled in this country, 

practically all of them from Bessemer steel. In 

1916, which, as you all know, was not a good 

% 

year for the rail business, the output was 
2,854,518 tons. Of this production in 1916, 
2,269,600 tons were rolled from open-hearth 
steel, showing the great development of that 
process during the intervening years. 

Although Mr. Durfee deserves the honor of 
having built the first successful Bessemer con¬ 
verter in this country, the steel made in it was 
actually an infringement on the Bessemer pat¬ 
ents, which were then in dispute. These patents 
were afterward bought by the firm of Winslow, 
Griswold and Holley, who built the first com¬ 
mercial plant for making Bessemer steel at Troy. 
Mr. Holley helped to develop the original con¬ 
verter at Wyandotte until it was on a commercial 
basis. He later assisted in the building of a 
plant at the Cambria Iron Works and next 
built the Bessemer plant at the Pennsylvania 
Steel Works, which was erected and operated 


69 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

under the combined patents of Bessemer and 
Kelly, who had in the meantime, reached an 
agreement. There were only thirteen plants 
built in this country down to 1881, but from that 
time the growth of the manufacture of Bessemer 
Steel in America was very rapid. The first com¬ 
mercial order of steel rails filled in this country 
was rolled by the Cambria Iron Company in 
1867, under the direction of Mr. Robert W. Hunt. 

WELLMAN DEVELOPED THE OPEN-HEARTH 

There has been an impression that William 
F. Durfee had much to do with the early develop¬ 
ment of the open-hearth process in this country, 
but this seems to be an error. He was largely 
occupied with the Bessemer process, but the 
credit of building the first successful open- 
hearth of the Siemens-Martin type is due to 
Mr. Samuel T. Wellman, of the Wellman- 
Seaver-Morgan Company. Mr. Wellman built 
the first really successful American open-hearth 
furnace at the Bay State Iron Works, South 
Boston, in the latter part of 1869. He had been 
assistant engineer for Mr. J. T. Potts, who had 
been sent to this country by C. W. Siemens to 
assist in the starting of an open-hearth furnace 
at Trenton for Cooper, Hewitt & Company, who 


70 



SAMUEL T. WELLMAN 

Pioneer in Steel Manufacture. First to Successfully 
Operate the Open-Hearth Furnace in America. 







Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


had bought the Siemens rights. This furnace 
had not been successful, owing to trouble with 
the gas producers and other difficulties, and was 
finally abandoned. In working on this furnace 
Mr. Wellman acquired experience that made it 
possible for him to correct errors in design that 
had proven fatal to the Cooper-Hewitt experi¬ 
ment. It was at South Boston that the first 
ferro-manganese was made in this country. A 
full account of this interesting stage in the de¬ 
velopment of the Siemens-Martin regenerative 
furnace was given by Mr. Wellman in a paper 
read before the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers in 1901, at which time he was Presi¬ 
dent of that body. Like almost all great im¬ 
provements the open-hearth furnace involved 
much costly experiment and many heart-break¬ 
ing failures. The first open-hearth furnaces had 
a capacity of only five or six tons at a heat, and 
they had none of the mechanical appliances for 
pouring or for casting ingots now in use. Devel¬ 
opment both as to size and mechanical operation 
has been gradual, and but little change has been 
made in the method of pre-heating the fuel gases. 

TARIFF PLAYS AN IMPORTANT PART 

To one who can recall the early years of iron 
and steel manufacture there is nothing more 


72 



First Statistician of the American Iron Trade 









Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

inspiring than the ceaseless effort of men engaged 
in the industry to find better and more economi¬ 
cal methods of producing iron and steel. To 
this must be ascribed in large part the phenome¬ 
nal advances made in America, which has led 
the world in the perfection of metallurgical 
processes and the adaptation of mechanical 
appliances for these processes. 

In like manner there is no question that a 
part of the development was due to the tariff 
policy which for a great portion of this period 
encouraged enterprise by protecting the strug¬ 
gling iron and steel industries against compe¬ 
tition from abroad and assuring reward for 
energy and ability expended in this direction. 

You will pardon me if I claim a small part 
in this, for it was my privilege to be consulted 
freely by William McKinley during the period 
in which he labored so faithfully and effectively 
for wise tariff-legislation, as well as to enjoy his 
personal friendship and confidence during his 
lifetime as well as during his administration. 
One of the most gratifying tasks of my life has 
been the effort to repay in some small measure 
the debt owed by the industries in America to 
this statesman, whose broad vision had so much 


74 



william McKinley 

The Most Prominent Advocate of the Policy of Protection 
to American Industries. Twenty-fifth President 
of the United States. 











Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


to do with our national growth, by conceiving, 
planning, and, with the help of my friends in 
these industries, erecting to his memory at Niles, 
Ohio, on the spot where he was born and where 
we played together as boys, one of the noblest 
and most beautiful memorials on the American 
continent. This structure was dedicated on 
October 5th, 1917, and I hope you will permit 
me at this time, although it may seem foreign 
to my subject, to extend to every member of the 
Institute an invitation to visit it. It has cost 
approximately half a million dollars and is ar¬ 
tistically worthy of its purpose. 

I have had the honor to be consulted by the 
men who framed every tariff bill passed by a 
Republican Congress since 1875, and have tried 
to consult with the framers of every Demo¬ 
cratic tariff bill during the same period. In 
preparing data for this paper I came across a 
voluminous report on industrial conditions 
prepared by me in 1912 at the special request 
of William H. Taft, then President of the United 
States, for the use of the Ways and Means 
committee at work on the tariff changes contem¬ 
plated at that time. This document, was sub¬ 
mitted to Mr. James A. Farrell, and it was thor- 


76 



JAMES A. FARRELL 


President of The United States Steel Corporation. An 
American Who Thinks in International Terms. 
















Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

oughly endorsed by him, so it must have had 
some merit. You may rest assured that in 
these activities, whether they were solicited, or, 
as was sometimes the case, not over-enthu- 
siastically received, I always had in mind the 
welfare of the country through its industries, 
and I am sure that these did not suffer from 
anything I said or wrote upon the subject. 

BROAD VISION OF LEADERSHIP 

Still more helpful was the influence of the 
organizations created and fostered by men of 
vision in the two industries. These men saw, 
long before it came to be generally realized, that 
the true basis of success in manufacturing enter¬ 
prises was not so much unreasoning competition 
as sensible co-operation, and they early put 
their views into effect by the organization of such 
associations as the American Pig Iron Associa¬ 
tion and the Bessemer Pig Iron Association, both 
of which it was my privilege for many years to 
serve as president, together with The American 
Iron and Steel Association and our own great 
Association, The American Iron and Steel 
Institute. It would be hard for anyone to estimate 
what has been accomplished by these organiza¬ 
tions toward the stimulation of progress and the 
conservation of resources in these two lines. 


78 



SAMUEL MATHER 

Director and one of the Founders of The United States Steel 
Corporation. Leading Spirit in the Develop¬ 
ment of Lake Superior Ore Industry. 










Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

Even those least friendly to the iron and 
steel interests must acknowledge that they have 
led all others in this country in the way of 
advanced ideas along sociological lines. This has 
been particularly true of The American Iron and 
Steel Institute under the able administration of 
Judge Gary. We have been the first to realize 
the great truth that business success depends 
upon co-operation rather than upon competi¬ 
tion, a truth now generally admitted. We have 
been the most generous of all the industries in 
dividing with labor the rewards of business. We 
have led all other industries in the matter of 
safety, sanitation and welfare work, and we 
have done more than any other to establish 
in the public mind the fact that the interests of 
labor and capital are identical, the prosperity of 
one involving the prosperity of the other, and 
that both owe to the public duties equal to those 
they owe to themselves. 

THE UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION 

The history of the American iron and steel 
industry has known no incident of more far- 
reaching importance than the organization of 
the United States Steel Corporation. It is the 


so 



HON. ELBERT H. GARY 


The Foremost Figure in the Iron and Steel World of Today 














Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

greatest industrial and financial aggregation in 
the world, producing a larger tonnage of steel 
and iron than any single country on the globe 
except the United States. 

The United States Steel Corporation was 
formed as the result of a growing conviction 
among men engaged in the manufacture of iron 
and steel that some method would have to be de¬ 
vised whereby greater efficiency could be obtained 
as well as more stable market conditions secured 
if the remarkable progress of this country along 
these lines was to be maintained and the competi¬ 
tion of foreign countries successfully met. History 
relates it was conceived in the brain of Elbert H. 
Gary, who was then President of the Federal Steel 
Company, but it was a long time in being born. 

As production mounted during the years 
between 1870 and 1890, conditions became 
exceedingly bad. Ruthless competition was the 
order of the day. Price-cutting, unfair methods 
of business, and all the evils attendant on the 
desire to secure markets became so prevalent 
that an effort was made to reach some sort of 
stability by the famous “pools”, which many of 
you will remember with amusement, because 
their only effect was to show that agreements of 


82 


J. P. MORGAN 


The Most Eminent Financier of the Nineteenth Century. 
Prominent in the Formation of The United 
States Steel Corporation. 





Fifty Years of Iro?i and Steel 

this kind without the proper spirit behind them 
are even less than “scraps of paper”. The first 
serious effort to improve conditions was the com¬ 
bination of a number of companies producing 
different lines of finished steel. Several of these 
came into being in the late nineties, but they 
went after one another in precisely the same 
spirit that the original companies manifested, 
and the only result was competition fiercer and 
more relentless than before. 

Judge Gary had tried to organize a great 
combination, and had turned for financial assis¬ 
tance to the late J. P. Morgan, then the only man 
in the United States who could influence the 
necessary capital. Morgan was unresponsive 
and nothing was done. Finally, however Judge 
Gary succeeded in interesting Andrew Carnegie, 
then a commanding figure in the steel world. 
Carnegie doubtless realized the fact that the 
policies followed up to that time were unwhole¬ 
some, and he was willing to sell out to such a • 
combination, because he felt that, sooner or 
later, his great company would find a rival, or 
combination of rivals, that would be its equal, 
and then would come a battle roval in which he 

j 

might suffer with the rest. 


84 



ANDREW CARNEGIE 


For Many Years a Dominant Figure in the Iron 
and Steel Industries. 








Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


On the evening of December 12, 1900, two 
New York men, both warm friends of Carnegie, 
arranged a dinner in New York. To this they 
invited Morgan and others among whom was 
Charles M. Schwab, then President of the Carne¬ 
gie Steel Company. Schwab made at that dinner 
the speech of his life. He painted the possi¬ 
bilities of such a corporation as Judge Gary 
had been trying to form, and painted them in 
such vivid colors that, after the dinner was over, 
Morgan took him to one side and spent the 
greater part of the evening in talking over the 
matter. The result was that the financier’s 
hesitation vanished and he asked Schwab to 
learn Carnegie’s price. This price was slightly 
more than $492,000,000 the largest sum that 
had ever been paid for anything bought in the 
world up to that time. 

The Steel Corporation was chartered early in 
1901. It began business with twelve of the larg¬ 
est companies then in existence. It had a capital 
of $1,404,000,000. Its properties consisted of 161 
separate plants, comprising 73 blast furnaces, 
steel works and rolling mills, vast holdings of 
ore lands, coal and limestone, 112 steamships, 
and 1,000 miles of railroads. Its productive 


86 



CHARLES M. SCHWAB 

A Most Interesting Figure in the American Steel and Iron 
Industries. Author, Orator, Musician—A Genius in Steel. 











Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

capacity was estimated at 7,400,000 tons of pig 
iron, 9,400,000 tons of steel ingots, and 7,900,000 
tons of finished steel per annum. Its board of 
directors included practically all of the very 
wealthy men then in the United States, and it 
had on its hands the biggest problem of industrial 
operation ever undertaken by any set of men. 

The Steel Corporation was regarded pessi¬ 
mistically by most of the practical steel men of 
that time. It was believed to be top-heavy 
and in the light of our experience and methods 
of business, most of the independents were much 
afraid of it. We did not then appreciate the 
high ideals of the man who first conceived it. 
Nor did we understand that part of his dream, 
now realized, was an entirely new principle in 
business conduct. The idea of co-operation, 
rather than competition, in business was then 
untried and most of us thought that it was 
impractical. We have seen it worked out, and 
we now know that this idea is basically sound. 
We have had opportunity to learn by experience 
that the United States Steel Corporation, man¬ 
aged as it has been, has been a most excellent 
thing for the iron and steel industries in this 
country and the world, and, so far as I am aware. 


88 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

there is not an independent steel company which 
has not benefited by the broad policy it inau¬ 
gurated and made possible for all of us. 

The eflfect of the corporation’s activities and 
its policy has been good from every point of 
view. It has benefited its workingmen, the 
public and its stockholders. Many new com¬ 
panies which have been started since it began 
business have found it an actual aid toward 
their success. 

So far as results are concerned, the Steel 
Corporation must be regarded as one of the most 
successful enterprises in American history. It 
has decreased the number of steel works under 
its management by dismantling several that 
were unprofitable in operation, so that it now 
operates 146 plants, instead of 149, as at the 
beginning; but it has increased its productive 
capacity fully 100 per cent. At the same time, 
owing to the phenomenal growth of the industry 
during this period, it now controls a far less 
proportion of production in this country than 
at the time of its entrance into the business, 
its production being only about 45 per cent 
of the whole of 1916. 


89 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

Perhaps the greatest service rendered to 
the steel industry of America by this great 
corporation has been the extension of our export 
trade. Under the able direction of President 
Farrell this branch of the market, formerly neg¬ 
lected, has been studiously cultivated, with 
marked advantage to the reputation of American 
iron and steel products in all parts of the world. 

The story of the United States Steel Cor- 
poration forms one of the most interesting chap¬ 
ters in the history of the iron and steel business 
of America and will always be one of the im¬ 
portant happenings in the industrial and finan¬ 
cial history of the world. It has established the 
fame of Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of its Board 
of Directors, since the beginning; J. P. Alorgan, 
whose financial genius and power made it possi¬ 
ble; Geo. W. Perkins, who, as chairman of its 
finance committee, found arduous tasks in its 
first years; Chas. M. Schwab, who, as its first 
president, piloted it through the troublesome 
period of its organization; William Ellis Corey, 
who was its president for years; James A. Far¬ 
rell, now occupying that responsible position; 
and many others. 


90 






Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


Among those who have done most to make 
it a success without any effort to claim credit is 
Henry Clay Frick. Even before Mr. Frick be¬ 
gan to actively devote his attention to the 
corporation he was on its board of directors 
and was recognized as the most forceful individ¬ 
ual in the trade. He had, in his relations with 
Andrew Carnegie, done inestimable service in 
blazing the way for a better understanding of 
business honor and rectitude. These relations 
and their outcome form an incident so striking 
that I should like to say something further con¬ 
cerning them. However, to those familiar with 
the matter it will be sufficient to say that they 
probably had indirectly a good deal to do with 
the formation of the Steel Corporation, and that 
their outcome illustrates the fact that, in the 
steel business, as in other walks of life, 
ability usually wins. Adr. Frick remains one 
of the most important figures in the industry, 
and his work on the Finance Committee of 
the Corporation has added to the universal 
esteem and respect in which he is held by all 
who are familiar with the industrial and finan¬ 
cial history of our country. 


91 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


One of the things of which the iron and steel 
industries have a just right to be proud is the 
present attitude of our government toward them. 
In times of peace Washington has shown a dis¬ 
position to amuse itself and entertain the public 
with efforts to regulate these corporations, but 
in time of war it turns to them without hesi¬ 
tation, finding them eager to render every serv¬ 
ice. At this time the government, through 
the War Industries Board, has prescribed cer¬ 
tain basic prices for steel products, but at the 
same time it has shown its faith in the manufac¬ 
turers themselves by asking them, through the 
Iron and Steel Institute, to arrange the details 
by which these prices may be made an actual 
fact. Under these circumstances, the fixing of 
prices has actually been done by patriotic man¬ 
ufacturers themselves, rather than by the gov¬ 
ernment, and the manner in which the interests 
of the nation have been given preference is a 
striking testimonial to the high ideals existing 
among these men. 

FRIENDS WHO HAVE MADE GOOD 

It has been my privilege to enjoy the per¬ 
sonal acquaintance and friendship of almost 
every man who has been prominent in iron 


92 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


and steel in America, as well as of many of those 
who have achieved fame abroad. Among these 
are some who have closed long and honorable 

t 

careers, and others who are still in the heyday 
of their usefulness; but, even more gratifying 
to me is the fact that in my experience it has 
been my pleasure to have in a certain sense been 
tutor and friend to many young men who have 
since proven their ability and energy by reach¬ 
ing positions of high usefulness and reputation. 
Julian Kennedy, whose career as an engineer 
has benefited the iron and steel industries in 
all parts of the world, came to the Mahoning 
Valley as a young man just out of college, and, 
while we thought he was rather too fond of 
rowing a boat on the little river there, he was 
evidently not wasting his time in fishing while 
doing so. Mr. C. A. Meissner, who is known to 
most of you as chairman of the coke committee of 
the corporation, was our first chemist at Brier 
Hill, and the first chemist, for that matter, em¬ 
ployed at any of the furnaces in that locality. 
While with us he distinguished himself by mak¬ 
ing first-class “Scotch” pig iron out of Lake 
Superior ores, and while we had at first to keep 
a little imported Scotch pig around for the 


93 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

benefit of doubting Thomases, it was not long 
until “Brier Hill Scotch” was in strong demand 
all over the country. Mr. W. B. Schiller, Mr. 
F. B. Richards and the late Jasper Sheadle, are 
also Brier Hill by-products. 

I would like, also, to claim credit for our 
young friend, Charlie Schwab, but Carnegie got 
hold of him first, and Andy always knew a good 
thing when he found it. Nevertheless, I wish 
to pay the compliment to Mr. Schwab of saying 
that he could hardly have done very much 
better had he been educated at Brier Hill. He 
has built up in the Bethlehem Steel Company, 
an institution which is a Krupp and a Creusot 
combined, with some advantages over both. 
So long as we have young men coming on with 
the brains and energy of those who are to be 
found in the various iron and steel organiza¬ 
tions, the future of these industries in America 
is safe, and the country is safe also. 

It has been said that: “Youth longs and man¬ 
hood strives, but age remembers”, and this is my 
excuse for indulging in reminiscences before a 
body of busy men intensely interested in the 
present and the future. To me it seems that 
this future can be gauged accurately from the 


94 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

present and the past. The early days of iron 
making in this country are radiant with the 
spirit of progress and of patriotism. This 
spirit had no small part in making America 
monarch of all the forges, and it has not died 
out. We can depend on it to still preserve the 
wonderful lead we have attained in production, 
and to maintain the institutions to which we 
owe so much of all that is good for us and for 
the world. 

It is as true today as it ever was that the 
civilization of a people may be told by their 
progress in the use of iron and steel, and I hope 
the time will never come when America will 
no longer lead all other nations in this respect. 
I hope also that the time will never come when 
men in our industry will show less public spirit 
or less patriotism than in the past. In the 
present crisis of our national life we need the 
high purpose and the unselfish devotion to 
country that our members have shown. We need 
the courage and vision of Judge Gary, our 
President, and we need the energy and ability of 
our younger manufacturers as never before. 


95 



VVesterman Iron Co.’s Rolling Mills, Sharon, Pa., About 1895 . 













Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

THE KAISER MISCALCULATED 

In 1916 I spent six weeks in France and 
England with the American Industrial Com¬ 
mission. Had not what I saw there been 
sufficient to impress upon me the importance 
of the American Iron and Steel Industries in the 
world’s struggle against despotism and scientific 
barbarism, the statements made to me by the 
leaders of the French and English people would 
have done so. Without the magnificent re¬ 
sources of our mines and mills the Allied cause 
would have been lost long ago. The genius, 
the energy, and the rectitude of purpose that 
made possible the splendid industrial develop¬ 
ment of America will also make possible the 
preservation of democracy. There can be no 
doubt whatever on this point. Our Govern¬ 
ment was not ready, but our mills were prepared. 
The biggest thing the Kaiser over looked in his 
calculations was the American Iron and Steel 
industry. 

It has been our great privilege, gentlemen 
of the Institute, to render aid on behalf of the 
world in the supreme hour of history. We are 
now called upon to make sacrifices in the same 
great cause, recently brought more directly home 


97 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

to America, but scarcely more ours now than it 
was at the beginning of the war. That we 
shall do so with energy and devotion charac¬ 
teristic of our history and in keeping with our 
traditions I have not the slightest doubt. 

Aside from the duty to aid our country in 
every way possible by the efficient operation of 
our properties and the ready co-operation with 
the Government already shown, our chief duty, 
as I see it, is to preserve the traditions and to 
continue the splendid record of the industries in 
our care. There is still much to be done. The 
limit of advancement has not been reached. In 
the future lies opportunity as great as that of 
the past. It must be grasped by younger men, 
for we older ones have reached the summit from 
which the prospect most alluring lies behind us. 
If the facts and reminiscences to which you have 
so patiently listened today give you inspiration 
to carry out the traditions and to emulate past 
performance of the great industries in which 
you are fortunate to be engaged, they will have 
accomplished their purpose and I shall have 
my reward. 


98 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

SUPPLEMENT-(APPENDIX) 


Because of the very general interest in the 
organization of the United States Steel Corpor¬ 
ation, as well as because of the large part in the 
industries taken by many of those connected 
with the Corporation in official capacities, I 
have deemed it proper to include the following 
information concerning that organization. 

From the statistics given herewith it will be 
seen that there have been numerous changes, 
combinations and additions made from time to 
time among the constituent companies, so that 
at this date (October, 1917), these companies 
number sixteen, as against twelve at the time the 
Steel Corporation was chartered (February 25, 
1901). 

It is a striking tribute to the growth of iron 
and steel production in this country that, while 
the Corporation originally controlled about sixty 
per cent, of American output, its total annual 
capacity at this time is somewhat less than fifty 
per cent, of the aggregate production of Ameri¬ 
can mills and furnaces. 

This information is given here, rather than 
in the body of this paper, because it was thought 

99 


> 

7 

) ; 
> ) ) 



Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


best to avoid an excess of facts and figures 
which it would be difficult, if not impossible, for 
those who heard the paper read to assimilate 
and remember from merely hearing them, as 
well as because the paper itself was so largely a 
matter of personal reminiscence and personal ex¬ 
perience. 


APPROXIMATE ANNUAL CAPACITY— 1917 


United States Steel Corporation 


TONS 


Pig Iron.18,344,000 

Steel Ingots.22,686,000 

Finished Steel Products, for sale . . . .16,500,000 


Cement, Bbls 


13,500,000 


100 


<> 

< < 

1 t 

< c 

t C <4 






Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


United States Steel Corporation 

Manufacturing Companies in Organization 


When Organized. 

Carnegie Steel Co. 
National Steel Co. 
American Steel Hoop Co. 


November, 1917 

1 

[•Merged. .Carnegie Steel Co. 

J 

Clairton Steel Co. 


National Tube Co. 
Shelby Steel Tube Co. 


\ 

/ 


Merged. .National Tube Co. 


The National Tube Co. 


American Tin Plate Co. 
American Sheet Steel Co. 

American Steel & Wire Co. 

American Bridge Co. 
Federal Steel Co. 

Illinois Steel Co. 

Lorain Steel Co. 


j Merged. .American Sheet & Tin Plate Co. 

American Steel & Wire Co. 

Union Steel Co. 

American Bridge Co. 

Federal Steel Co. 

Illinois Steel Co. 

Lorain Steel Co. 

Indiana Steel Co. 

Minnesota Steel Co. 

U. S. Steel Products Co. 
Universal Portland Cement Co. 
Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. R. Co. 


101 


United States Steel Corporation 


o • 

s 

•- > </» 
iaT c 

K * -o — 

E & 3 > 

'S 

tn ±r o *TD o 
g WOWa- 


v> 

# w 


Niiau 


e« fc. -o 

CC . . oj 

;SO e 


. 2 E c-= 


r> s 




u- 


X 

'o g g* 

•2 S « m ,w 

rt *- _y o 

O O w in m 

<£ u- 50 * •“ s 

. £ * • £ t* 

.2 

. c 9 - 


‘j 8 K 




— © c — *r- ■ > 


o e—»* 
w o « 1 


oc 

^ Ci 

zr ^ 

o . 


C4 f—^*T3 u 
H k 3 u 0-0 

U U-C^ o 
W ft . .C£ 

£ tox- 

Qb. > „. £ 
c g U 

A § s 


<3 

ft 


C} 


<3 

1 ? -*S 

.£ u=0 

-: a £ 

»bj « 


n 


- .a 5 

- •£ s. 


>-2 " b - S b c 

^ca S 

s, - uC ? b> s « 

t:® 2 


%» £ ^ to 1 

© Jr . - 

S-cCU 


A* _ — 


C 

- o „ 

t - £^3 
x »- ex- — 

<« ,2 is — 

S^o- ■ 


« V— • wi = 

-= -C nj 2-n.- « 

j-*|!i^1- afiw 

• 5 = ‘.(j'S.c s 

•j-S ^-cJi'o e 

-3 .£ -.'2 s 6 
oit» S’HU 


■— ' i 

0 O'S ** w 

-p '5 © "O 

• 5 C'cj 2 £ 

o 


x o ° 

a &£- 


O 

OA*l 


o 

© 


u 

_o 

o 

c* 


_o 

rt j/5 

3 £ e .2f 

£ o £ c 

— r~ rt 

05 r O /-s 

C/3 H •—»Q 


o, PJ ^ 

.„ O « OW C 
> «£ V rt 

J-S S o *?s 

fiQ e o c x: 

« v °H ^ ^ 
© S © © E*o 
w ..!= 

U 1 © * C 1 C 

G^-g-rSe 


=J11 

’o„(J 

U _ © 

©.X <-• 

|cS 

8.S.S 

ol^ 


-e| 
g f-5 
Jo S 


;° “ e" o 
;® a 8 E« 

■ ©‘ xg u 

jfllcS-s 

° <n lO ©*0 

u. O U 

© w o» c e 

aj rt 
O C 5.S 6 

a ^ cUn.ir 

■5 * ||u 
^ SO" 5 

> S= 5 = 
xi 5 ui B ib 


W _ 
U1 S 

£ * 
£ S 
s b 
^ 5 


^ b. 
O 


vT 


^ ^ C r>_~ 

> ^ 


2 ^ O- 

u-«5h^ ocu 6 

. ._• QJ O o 


> 
« o 

g-° 

-3 

CJ 

O Q. 

z « 


3 

<« 

"3 

c 


ft —, 

•b r c - * 

^ ^ o 


Jj 


-a „—> c . S “ c 

o S c*3 



tT G 

f£ jh»'a 2 £ 

fl> »- 

t- V- W) 

<U u U.. 

*u 

H 

T3 

u 

n; 

o ° 

X v> 
-XJ w 
r3 oi 

E. H 
H. C 
Geo. 
J. P. 
Geo. 
Henr 
Norn 
Perci 
P. A. 

c:<d_= 
W-AQ A 

"u 

s 



td 

t 

£ ^ 


• ' r 




„ '71 

<3 w Z O •* v. ci 

< « J Cbl .c ^ id 

^oaS-S^b-if&x- 

^ -5 53£g|S 

c c o 6 

. O . O a; o o k* 

wSZa.XCOI? 


c 

o 


ag 
c ? 


O 

2 : 


S d 

*■ o 

dd 

« x 

—.a 

•s^ 

•B-g 

s-8 

>% 3 
cJ 


C 

c - 

T3 : 
C ; 
« . 
X 


P-2 

= o 


C ^4 


- 2 

ecu” 

j-r. 5 u c 

4 uft • ^ U- t-* 
oClh .CQ^ , « 

* x - •' 


b. 


b g • b S 

c u< cj: 
v o .vo 


-.o 
-S c 

3 

- 

O •• r^> 

M b u 
* c 
SoO 

sx“ 


dizXx^uki^ 


S e 

J2 


■ - ■" s 

■ & >. C* X2S 

£ 

*c 

si 

0 i 62.2 

H 

jg C 

00 bQ 

T3 


s«°“ 

• CO • 

s? 

"0 


ui^A^ 

5 



U3 c 

u ^ 

t.E 

S 5 

S -c 

.50 g 
° bTji 

U 3 i- •- "X 
> « r 

dcoi-S 

C • • w 

5xo^ 

u; ^ _ E 

X u U 4 

W "’c = 


?TS g 

X x H 5 




• 2 ^ 
. S' i 

* 6>'1 


1 £ 

O u 

dc$ 

T> — 
C 
3 

E 
-o 


■eu 


3 ^4 

jT-s a a 

i!^ 0 - “ 

| 

1/5 1/5 ., Z 

x-5 

cfl o 

_C _C 

uuc3 


’5 ^ •> «cT 

•C in E *- <* 

H&|Sbi 

« ,ee> . *3 
O^X c -X*^ 

^ S!<£« 

O o O . ^ _c 


_c x 

rj ^ 

^ X 

-C nj 

c)5^ 


5 ! u : . 

u. cq • — 

u. . C K 

C^~ >> 


• o u 
; •£ -d 

;jE 


c a 
o o 


a :oi 


* ^ m 

; 5 ^: 
: -O ^ 

i W I 


c *>^ 3^3 : . f c 

<3 C N. \* V. V. q 

V* Q »T t; ~ 

^ fe S 

OKc^Cjo 


w *-> N* V* 

^5 V v». v- 

•c w -•• • — 

Vja,^b 


102 


•irectors. 























Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

(Addenda) 

The decision of the United States Supreme 
Court, handed down on March 1, 1920, sustain¬ 
ing that of the District Court of the United 
States for the District of New Jersey, in which 
a petition for the dissolution of the United 
States Steel Corporation was refused, is a mat¬ 
ter for congratulation on the part of the steel 
industry generally as well as on the part of the 
country. 

The opinion of the court in which this im¬ 
portant case was disposed of compares the meth¬ 
ods and purposes of the Steel Corporation, as 
developed by the voluminous testimony taken 
in the case, with those of the Standard Oil 
Company and American Tobacco Company, 
reaching the conclusion that these were essen¬ 
tially different and that the Steel Corporation 
used neither harsh methods with competitors 
nor its great power to influence prices against 
the public. 

This lengthy opinion constitutes a magnifi¬ 
cent tribute to the vision of the Corporation’s 
management. It makes evident the fact that, 
while this business is conducted on a huge scale, 


103 


f ifty Years of Iron and Steel 

the only scale on which it can attain efficiency 
sufficient to meet modern needs and conditions, 
is managed with a breadth of view and an 
appreciation of the Golden Rule little under¬ 
stood by those who have not studied it from an 
impartial standpoint. 

The fact that the United States Steel Cor¬ 
poration is now established as a lawful and 
proper organization means much to the iron and 
steel industry of this country and to the general 
public. It means that from this time forward 
the majestic progress of this industry will 'be 
unhampered by the menace of vindictive legis¬ 
lation. The Corporation’s studious avoidance 
of offenses against the law and the public wel¬ 
fare in the past is assurance that this will con¬ 
tinue in the future, since the court’s opinion 
declares that, if there was at any time any 
disposition on the part of its officials to use 
improperly the great power of their organiza¬ 
tion, this had disappeared before any action 

was begun by the government and solely because 
experience and judgment had dictated the 
adoption of a policy helpful alike to Indepen¬ 
dents and the Corporation. 


104 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

As a result of this decision, any threat of 
obstructing legislation has been removed and 
the development of the iron and steel industry 
along logical lines, which involve large combina¬ 
tions of capital, may go forward untrammelled 
by restrictions other than those which sur¬ 
round all enterprises of magnitude and are 
necessary for the genera! good of the public. 

The subject should not be dismissed without 
some reference to the vision, the judgment and 
the honesty of purpose displayed by Judge 
Elbert H. Gary, Chairman, acquiesced in by 
officials of the Corporation, which alone made 
the effort to destroy this great organization 
unsuccessful. 


105 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 
HISTORICAL 

Interesting Facts Concerning the Early His¬ 
tory of the Use and Manufacture 
of Iron and Steel. 

In response to numerous requests, the fol¬ 
lowing historical data concerning the early use 
and manufacture of iron and steel is given here¬ 
with in order that it may be found in convenient 
form for reference. This information has been 
gathered from various sources, including most 
of the authoritative literature on the subject. 
The writer claims for it no originality. Nor can 
he claim for it absolute accuracy, since on many 
points the facts are somewhat in doubt and it 
has been necessary to give from a mass of con¬ 
flicting statements those which seemed to be 
favored by the weight of the evidence. 

The first use of iron probably antedates all 
human records and even the oldest traditions. 
The place at which it was first discovered, as 
well as the manner in which it was first worked, 
are lost in the mists of antiquity. There seems 
to be little reason to doubt that it was among the 
first of the metals to be used, in spite of a com¬ 
mon impression that the use of bronze is older. 


106 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

This impression seems to have grown out of 
reference to bronze in the earliest chronicles; 
but since it was more difficult to make bronze 
than iron, the latter was probably used in var¬ 
ious ways before it was discovered that copper 
and tin could be combined to form a workable 
metal. 

So far as is known, iron was first used in 
Western Asia and soon afterward in Northern 
Africa, although a few writers lean to the belief 
that the Chinese deserve credit for this dis¬ 
covery, as they do for a number of others made 
early in the known history of the race. The 
first reliable evidence of the employment of iron 
in weapons and tools comes from that part of 
the world in which man has left, through history 
and tradition, the first record of his existence 
and his activities. There is reason to believe 
that the first iron devoted to useful purposes 
was obtained from meteorites, and that the 
first iron ore taken from the earth was mined in 
Algeria, where ore deposits of unusual richness 
are found at this day. 

The art of working iron seems to have reached 
very early in history a stage which would indi¬ 
cate that its source must have depended on 


107 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


something more dependable than the finding of 
fragments from other worlds. Tubal Cain, de¬ 
scribed in Genesis as “the forger of every cutting 
instrument of brass and iron,” was born in the 
seventh generation from Adam, and he must 
have had some method of securing the raw ma¬ 
terials for his trade easily accessible and within 
reasonable distance from the cradle of the race. 
The Egyptians, whose existence as a people is 
believed to have begun two generations after 
Noah and whose civilization is the earliest of 
which we have authentic records, made consider¬ 
able use of iron, which they most likely obtained 
from Algeria. An inscription found among the 
ruins of Karnak, in Upper Egypt, relates that 
Thothmes, who reigned about seventeen cen¬ 
turies before the Christian era, had received from 
the tributary kings of Lower Egypt presents of 
wrought metal, with vessels of copper, bronze 
and iron. The iron probably came from Al¬ 
geria, and may have been worked before the 
Egyptians learned to fashion a cutting edge, 
otherwise they would probably have brought 
gifts in the form of weapons, which at that period 
of the world’s history, were deemed the most 
important of all implements. 


108 









Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

Steel seems to have been first made in Chal- 
ybia, a district in what is now Armenia, although 
it may have been known in other parts of the 
East at an earlier date. Steel and iron tools 
found in India and said to be three thousand 
years old are in the British Museum. They 
must have been made from steel formed by a 
process similar to the crucible process, for their 
quality is excellent, but of this there is no 
record. The famous pillar at Delhi is believed 
to have been erected six centuries before Christ, 
and if this supposition, which depends chiefly 
on an inscription in Sanscrit, is correct, the 
art of working iron in large masses was known in 
India at a very early date. The Delhi pillar 
is of wrought iron, almost entirely pure. It 
is 23 feet 8 inches in height and cylindrical in 
form, except that its diameter at the base is 
somewhat larger than at the top, the former 
being 16.4 inches. An ornamental capital sur¬ 
mounts the column. The pillar has been highly 
polished and is covered with inscriptions, al¬ 
though the metal is so hard that modern tools 
mark it only with the greatest difficulty. It has 
defied the elements for twenty-six centuries and 
is an object of great interest to metallurgists. 


109 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

The inscriptions give no information as to why 
it was erected or by what method the iron was 
brought to that form. 

Iron is mentioned in a Chinese record be¬ 
lieved to have been written 2000 years before 
Christ. In this ancient land of mystery very 
little advancement has been made in the pro¬ 
duction of iron, and whether the metal was dis¬ 
covered first there or in Western Asia, the fact 
remains that at this time practically none of it 
is now produced on that continent. 

The first authentic record of the use of iron 
in Europe indicates that this occurred about 
700 B. C. although Greek mythology refers to it 
in chronicles far antedating that period. The 
Greeks are said to have used iron during the 
Trojan War, although their opponents were 
not acquainted with the metal, a fact which 
seems to be established by the failure to find 
any trace of iron among the ruins of ancient 
Troy. As in other instances, this use of the 
metal is a matter of tradition, and the first au¬ 
thentic reference to it in Grecian history is about 
700 B.C. 

The Romans learned that art of working 
iron from the Greeks, and at the beginning of 


110 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

the Christian era it was extensively employed 
by them in the form of weapons, ornaments and 
in other ways. When Vespasian built the Col¬ 
iseum with the labor of slaves brought from 
Jerusalem by Titus, about A.D. 32, he used iron 
ties to hold the great stones in place. 

Abundance of rich ores in Spain led to that 
country becoming early one of the chief sources 
of iron and one of the earliest sources of steel 
in Europe. There the first advances were made 
in the smelting of ore by the invention of the 
Catalonian forge, which was later used in every 
country in Europe and even in this country. 
This primitive furnace may still be found in 
use in many parts of the world. The forges of 
Aragon and Catalonia acquired high fame in the 
production of steel, and the swords of Toledo 
have never been excelled in beauty and quality. 
Here, as in Asia and China, development of 
efficient methods never made much progress, 
and Spain is now among the inconsequential 
producers of iron and steel. 

The Belgians were among the first European 
peoples to make much progress in these indus¬ 
tries, and they have always been relatively large 
producers of iron and steel, as well as among 


111 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

the most skillful artificers in these metals. They 
made iron before the invasion of the Romans, 
and have been known as the most accomplished 
artists in certain lines of its manufacture since 
that time. The pathetic fate of their great fac¬ 
tories under the heel of the Prussian invader 
is one of the features of the present European war. 

The Germans were among the last peoples 
in Europe to be civilized and among the last to 
learn the art of manufacturing iron. They have, 
however, made greater progress in this line than 
most other nations. At a time when the Roman 
soldiers were equipped with iron swords and 
lances and even iron armor, the Germans fought 
them through their dark forests with wooden 
spears, bows and arrows. Not until 1,000 years 
after the beginning of the Christian era did 
these Germans begin to make iron in any quan¬ 
tity. They then invented the “stuckhofen” an 
improvement on the Catalan forge, and later 
they devised the “blauofen” which was the pro¬ 
genitor of the modern blast furnace. The 
“blauofen” was gradually developed until 1450 
A.D. a furnace of this type 24 feet in height 
was operated in the Thuringian mountains. This 
furnace was equipped with a wooden bellows, 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

which a church organist had invented to super¬ 
sede the leather bellows. At the beginning of 
the present war, Germany stood second in the 
list of the world’s producers of pig iron, with a 
tonnage of almost 12,000,000 as compared with 
30,000,000 in the United States and 9,000,000 
for England. 

France has never been a great producer of 
iron and steel, and the history of those indus¬ 
tries on Gallic soil has been about the same as 
in other parts of Europe. In none of the old 
world nations was much progress made in the 
ten centuries preceding the Nineteenth, but since 
that time the growth of iron and steel manufac¬ 
ture has been rapid. The Krupp Works at 
Essen, Germany, and the Creusot Works in 
France were founded about the beginning of the 
last century and since that time both countries 
have advanced rapidly in the use of improved 
methods. France produced about 4,000,000 
tons of pig iron in 1915. Her great steel works 
are now almost exclusively devoted to the man¬ 
ufacture of munitions of war. 

The blast furnace made its first appearance in 
England in the Fifteenth Century and there, as 
everywhere else, the result was an astonishing 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


development of the industry. The great prob¬ 
lem of previous ages had been to secure tempera¬ 
tures high enough to melt iron ore rapidly, and 
when this was solved by the use of an effective 
blast, other improvements followed immediately. 
England was the first country to feel the short¬ 
age of wood caused by the consumption of whole 
forests in making charcoal for blast furnace fuel, 
and in the middle of the Seventeenth Century 
the iron industry suffered a severe check be¬ 
cause of a popular uprising against the further 
use of wood for this purpose. It was feared 
that if the blast furnaces kept on demanding 
charcoal not enough timber could be found to 
maintain the royal navy. This agitation led 
to the discovery of coke about 1750, and with 
it came almost a revolution in the manufacture 
of iron. 

Crucible steel was first made in England in 
1740, the process having been discovered by 
Benjamin Huntsman, who was not an iron work¬ 
er, but a maker of clocks. 

The art of working iron was brought to this 
hemisphere from the Old World. The North 
American Indians had absolutely no knowledge 
of it, and there has been found no evidence that 


114 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

the Mound Builders ever smelted iron, although 
it is probable they knew its value, for they used 
a few weapons and tools fashioned from meteoric 
iron by hammering. In Mexico and South 
America the Spaniards found the natives famil¬ 
iar with the process of smelting and working 
silver and gold, but they apparently knew noth¬ 
ing of the use of iron. 

It was in quest of gold, too, that the first 
discovery of iron ore on this continent was made 
by the English. They were, of course, disap¬ 
pointed that the more precious metal could 
not be found, but events have proven the iron 
deposits of North America to exceed in wealth 
the most fabled dreams of the original gold- 
seekers. 

Iron was first discovered in North Carolina 
in 1585. Ore was shipped to England from 
Jamestown in 1608. Ten years later a bloomary 
and forge were erected at Falling Creek, Va., 
but before they were put in operation the 
Indians descended on the workmen, slaying them 
and destroying their enterprise. Thus Virginia 
lost the honor of producing the first iron in 
America. This went to Massachusetts, where, 
in May, 1645, the first successful smelting of 


115 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

iron ore on this side of the world took place, 
three tons being made at Lynn during May of 
that year. 

Little progress in the manufacture of iron 
or steel was made in this country, from this 
time until the early years of 1800, the colonies 
having been encouraged to depend on the mother 
country for their supplies and many difficulties 
being encountered in the then new and thinly 
settled regions where the first iron enterprises 
had been established. At the close of the Eight¬ 
eenth Century the Napoleonic wars distracted 
the attention of the English from American 
markets and required all the product of their 
furnaces, so that by 1812 the iron industry in 
the United States had attained some headway, 
furnaces being erected in many parts of the 
country where ore could be found and where 
wood for charcoal was abundant. 

Then came the downfall of Napoleon, and 
soon after the revival of the export trade of 
Britain, which had a disastrous effect on these 
new enterprises as well as on all manufactures 
in this country. Many of the furnaces were 
unable to compete and went out of commission. 
But little progress was made from 1820 until 


116 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


the opening of the Civil War, which created an 
immediate demand for iron and steel. Many 
new furnaces were erected, every method of in¬ 
creasing production was eagerly seized, and from 
that time forward the growth of the industries 
has been phenomenal. 

Developments following the Civil War period 
have been discussed at length in the paper, 
“Fifty Years of Iron and Steel,” which imme¬ 
diately precedes this chapter. 


117 



American Steel in the World 

War 


If they are to be estimated at their true 
values, events must be studied in proper per¬ 
spective. This perspective extends into the 
future as well as into the past, however, and 
it is from the angle of the future rather than 
of the, past, that the World War ending with 
the capitulation of the Imperial German Gov¬ 
ernment on November 11, 1918, deserves to be 
recorded as the most important event in human 
history. 

It is true that this was the greatest war 
the world has ever seen. Never before was 
human effort mobilized on so grand a scale. 
Never were science, skill and physical power 
combined in like degree for any purpose, good 
or evil. All of the leading nations of the earth 
were engaged. The conflict extended to three 
continents. Battles raged in the air, on land, 
on the sea, beneath the sea and beneath the 


119 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


land. Directly or indirectly the labor of a 
hundred million human beings was employed. 
Six millions perished utterly; fifteen millions 
were maimed or incapacitated by disease; wealth 
valued at more than one hundred and seventy- 
five billions was destroyed, and the productive 
effort of the most enlightened portion of the 
human race was for more than four years di¬ 
verted to tasks of destruction. But all this 
is no greater than the results achieved. The 
war has ended for all time the age-old question 
of the right of men to self-government. It has 
relegated to the scrap heap of history the 
ancient fetish of the divine right of kings; it has 
opened the way to self-determination of their 
own destinies by all peoples, and made possible 
the sweetening and enriching of life for the 
generations yet to come. 

What nation and what element played the 
pre-eminent part in this epochal event? Many 
nations may justly claim each to have made 
the triumph of the Central Powers impossible. 
Belgium held the Teuton hordes at Liege and 
Namur while France and England, both un¬ 
prepared, aligned their forces for the struggle 


120 



Committee Appointed to Consider Duluth’s Claim to be Constituted a Basing Point for Steel Shipments—June 12, 1918. 

Upper Line (left to right), Geo. K. Leet, D. G- Kerr, H. G. Dalton, E. J. Buffi ngton, Edward Bailey. Second Line, L. E. Block, J. A. Topping 
J. A. r arrell. Third Line, J. A. Burden, J. A. Campbell, Willis L. King, James T. McCleary. Bottom Line, E. A. S. 

Clarke, A. F. Houston, Elbert H. Gary, Joseph G. Butler Jr, 







Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

France hurled them back at the Marne and 
stood like a rock throughout the war. Eng¬ 
land swept the seas of German commerce and 
flung her armies half around the world. 
Russia divided the menace at a time when it 
would otherwise have been overpowering. 
Italy held the back door of France. But none 
of these did more than to prevent the ultimate 
triumph of despotism. With all of them the 
war might have ended virtually in a draw. It 
was reserved for America, and above all, Ameri¬ 
can steel, to win the Armageddon of the modern 
world. 

This was a war of steel. Men and food, 
heretofore the determining elements of mili¬ 
tary power, were helpless without steel—steel 
in unlimited quantities and innumerable forms. 
The vast armies engaged and the wide ranges 
of the conflict only served to emphasize the 
importance of steel. And it was this fact that 
made Germany and her allies so formidable. 

Skill and resources for the production of 
steel are more highly developed in Germany 
and in the United States than in any other 
countries of the world. Their combined pro- 


122 




POWELL STACKHOUSE 

Who Earned High Reputation by Lifelong Service 
With the Cambria Iron and Cambria Steel 
Companies. 





Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


duction at the beginning of the war exceeded 
that of all other nations. In America this 
development was the result of conditions and 
circumstances none of which were inimical to the 
peace and safety of the world, but in Germany 
it seems to have been brought about as a part 
of the long planned ambition to extend German 
power and influence by the sword. Until 
the forcible annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, Ger¬ 
many had but little iron ore, and even the mines 
of that stolen territory did not meet her needs at 
the beginning of the World War. In 1913 she 
imported from France, Sweden and Spain more 
than 12,000,000 tons of iron ore. Her produc¬ 
tion of pig iron in 1913 (figures for that year 
alone being available) was 19,004,022 tons. 
With this, and the added pig iron output of 
Austria-Hungary for that year, Germany entered 
the war with an annual productive capacity of 
21,339,192 tons of iron. 

The annual iron production of England, 
France, Belgium and Russia during 1913 was 
22,502,819 tons, and, considering the relatively 
large proportion of unrefined iron consumed 
by certain industries in Belgium, it is safe to 


124 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

say that the war opened with the Central 
Powers and the Allied nations about equal 

upon this point. Had no other sources of 
steel been available it is probable that the 

war would have been of short duration, for 
although Germany’s ore supplies from France 
and Spain were at once cut off, this had been 
foreseen and provided for by the militarists 
who planned the conflict. 

The violation of Belgium and the imme¬ 
diate occupation of that section of Northern 
France containing practically all of her ore and 
blast furnace equipment; gave Germany a vast 
additional supply, while at the same time de¬ 
priving her enemies of nearly half of theirs. 
Within three weeks after the war opened, Ger¬ 
many was in possession of the Longwy and 
Briey iron basins, in which were located ninety- 
five of the 123 blast furnaces on French soil, 
together with ninety per cent, of all French ore. 
Very soon also Germany had possession of the 
blast furnaces and mines of Belgium, and had 
added to her resources for the production of steel 
7,000,000 tons of iron, at the same time reducing 
the resources of her then enemies to less than 


125 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


15,000,000 tons. Russia’s small production 
was not available on the Western front at 
any time, and before long ceased to be a factor. 
England needed all she could produce, and 
France was reduced to the minor output of 
the small St. Etienne fields, with what she 
could secure from Spain and Algiers under 
transportation conditions almost impossible, and 
for the smelting of this she had no furnaces 
ready. It is evident that under these circum¬ 
stances the steel production of the Allies was 
less than half that of their antagonists and that, 
unless this condition was speedily remedied, 
the war must end in the triumph of Germany. 

As quickly as the French saw that they 
could not dislodge the Germans from their 
ore basins, they turned to this country for 
steel. At first, it was believed that the Ger¬ 
mans, driven back in the first battle of the 
Marne, could not hold long on the Aisne, and 
it is likely that if the French had been as well 
supplied with munitions then as they were 
later, this would have been the case. Toward 
the end of 1914, both France and England 
realized the situation and orders for steel in 


126 





CHARLES A. OTIS, SR., 

Founder of the Otis Steel Company—Onetime Mayor 
of Cleveland — an Aggressive, Able and 
Practical Steel Manufacturer. 









Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

large quantities began to come to this coun¬ 
try. At first they were chiefly for barbed 
wire, shell and shrapnel bars. Later they 
assumed almost every form in which steel is 
sold as either finished or semi-finished mate¬ 
rial. 

At this point it may be well to digress 
from the subject to state that at the beginning 
of the war its magnitude and probable dura¬ 
tion were grasped by very few people, either 
in Europe or America. The Kaiser had fixed 
its duration at six months, and even those 
best informed could not conceive of a conflict 
that would involve twenty-six nations and 
last for more than four years. Lord Kitchener 
was almost alone in his belief that three years 
would be required to defeat Germany. Neither 
was the war recognized at first in its true light. 
Americans generally were inclined to regard 
it as merely a recurrence of the jealous quarrels 
that had prevailed from time to time among 
European nations, and were slow to concede 
that this country had any interest in the out¬ 
come. As time went on, however, and the 
methods deliberately adopted by Germany to 
win, together with the purpose her leaders had 


128 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

in mind, became revealed, sentiment in this 
country underwent a rapid and decisive change. 

The author was a member of the Indus¬ 
trial Commission sent from this country to 
France in the autumn of 1916 with the purpose 
of studying conditions there. This Commis¬ 
sion was composed of business men and the 
principal task of its chairman seemed to be 
the preservation of an attitude of strict neu¬ 
trality among the members. With more or 
less difficulty this attitude was maintained by 
a majority of the Commissioners, although the 
author is not ashamed to say that he was not 
one of this majority. He is, likewise, proud 
to state that other representatives of the iron 
and steel business in this country shared his 
views. Nevertheless, at that time we were 
not at war with Germany and few of our people 
had yet visualized the conflict on the other side 
for what it proved later to be—a life and death 
struggle between democracy and autocracy, in 
which not only human liberty, but also Chris¬ 
tian civilization, as distinguished from the 
essentially Pagan system known as German 
Kultur, faced the possibility of destruction. 


129 



Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

It is now a matter for congratulation that 
the iron and steel producers of America gladly 
responded to the appeals of France, England 
and Italy for steel, so supremely essential to 
their defense. Nevertheless, it is probable 
that, in the state of public sentiment at the 
beginning of the war, we should have sold steel 
to Germany as readily as to France and Eng¬ 
land, had that been possible. It was not possi¬ 
ble because Germany, in violating Belgium, 
had forced England into the conflict, and 
England’s majestic fleet speedily made the seven 
seas a highway open only to allied and neutral 
vessels, preventing shipment to Germany of 
any materials that could be employed in the 
prosecution of the war. Later, when the situ¬ 
ation became better understood, and long before 
our Government yielded to the pressure of 
public sentiment with its too long delayed, 
declaration of war, American steel manufac¬ 
turers had been so aroused against the treason¬ 
able and uncivilized methods of the Central 
Powers that it is doubtful if they would have 
furnished steel for the German armies under 
any conditions. 


130 



ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY 

Eminent Metallurgical Engineer. The Wonderful 
Development of the Bessemer Steel Process in 
America Was Very Largely Due to His 
Efforts. Born, Salisbury, Conn., 1832. 

Died, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1882. 







Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

As stated above, the part played by the 
American iron and steel industries in the war 
began early in 1915, with the filling of rush 
orders for munitions material from France and 
England. The previous year had been one of 
marked depression, due in part to the financial 
disturbance caused by the war, and the output 
of pig iron was only 23,332,244 tons, as com¬ 
pared with 30,966,152 tons produced during 
1913. During December of 1914 production 
reached a very low ebb, being estimated at 
between 25 and 30 per cent of capacity for 
mills and furnaces. With the coming of Europ¬ 
ean demand, and somewhat better prices fol¬ 
lowing its appearance, conditions changed rap¬ 
idly, and in May of 1915, when war orders 
became a veritable flood, production reached 
about 80 per cent of capacity. The industries 
strained every nerve to meet the unusual de¬ 
mand, and by December, pig iron production 
in America had attained a rate of 38,000,000 
tons per year. 

That much of the astounding energy shown 
by iron and steel producers during this period 
was inspired by higher motives than mere profit 
is shown conclusively by the fact during 1915 


132 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

prices advanced but slightly, the increase in the 
price of Bessemer iron being only $5 per ton, an 
amount hardly sufficient to account for the 
rapidly growing costs of operation. A large 
amount of the steel produced during 1915 went 
abroad, but a revival of industrial activity in 
this country increased domestic demand ma¬ 
terially, and considerable steel was used in the 
making of munitions for the Allies in hundreds 
of establishments on this side of the ocean. 

The year 1916 was a duplicate of the latter 
part of 1915, except in the matter of low prices. 
During that year steel and iron exports, the 
greater part of which were for war purposes, 
reached a total of 6,102,104 tons, as compared 
with exports for the previous year of 3,513,453 
tons. Prices advanced rapidly, frequent wage 
increases were granted, and the industry reached 
a highly prosperous condition. Pig iron pro¬ 
duction in 1916 was 42,773,680 tons, up to that 

time the largest on record. 

/ 

The flood of American iron and steel and 
their products to France aroused the ire of 
the Germans, pointing as it did to the failure 


133 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

of their plan to conquer Europe by seizing the 
iron ore fields and the furnaces of France and 
Belgium. Attacks by German submarines on 
our vessels became frequent. Violation of in¬ 
ternational law and outrages patently meant to 
terrorize America were the rule. The sinking 
of the Lusitania on May 7, 1916, with many 
other occurrences, made it evident that America 
would find difficulty in remaining neutral. 
The administration, which was facing an elec¬ 
tion, hesitated and delayed, in spite of sugges¬ 
tions that it prepare the country for defense. 
Finally, however, a survey was authorized to 
determine the resources of the nation in the 
event of war, and the iron and steel industries 
were asked to furnish information as to their 
equipment and product. This was done with¬ 
out hesitation, of course; but the most striking 
evidence of the high patriotism of the men en¬ 
gaged in this industry was the almost universal 
offer of their plants and resources to the nation. 
Many of them, convinced that war was inevit¬ 
able, incorporated at this time a clause in 
their contracts making such contracts contin¬ 
gent on “the necessities of the government in 
time of war or national emergency.” 


134 



HENRY CHISHOLM 


One of the First Manufacturers to Successfully 
Develop the Bessemer Steel Process. 





Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


The last half of 1916 and the early months 
of 1917 were marked by continued activity 
in the industries under discussion. They also 
revealed facts concerning the dishonorable meth¬ 
ods of German diplomacy and a continuation of 
lawless insolence that made the possibility of 
continued peace seem more and more remote. 
Finally, after apparently exhausting every re¬ 
source to avoid war, the President called on 
Congress for authority to use the armed strength 
of the nation to maintain its rights. The reso¬ 
lution declaring a state of war between the 
United States and the Imperial German Gov¬ 
ernment was signed on April 6, 1917, and three 
days later relations with Austria-Hungary were 
severed. The nation was at war. 

Instantly the iron and steel industries, in 
common with practically all others, enlisted 
without reservation for the country’s defence. 
Judge Gary, president of the American Iron 
and Steel Institute, was called to Washington 
for conference with Bernard M. Baruch, who 
had been appointed chairman of the Alinerals 
and Metals Committee of the Advisory Com¬ 
mission, Council of National Defense, and at 
the midsummer meeting of the Institute, held 


136 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

at New York May 25th and 26th, he announced 
that the Secretary of War and Secretary of the 
Navy had requested him to appoint a Commit¬ 
tee on Steel and Steel Products, to aid the gov¬ 
ernment in mobilizing the resources of the coun¬ 
try in this line. The directors of the Institute 
had met and appointed this Committee, together 
with six others to act in conjunction with and 
have special supervision over all branches of 
the industry. At this same meeting Judge Gary 
felicitated the manufacturers on the patriot¬ 
ism shown by the industry, and announced, 
among other evidences of this, that the com¬ 
mittee had agreed to supply the immediate 
needs of the army and navy for bars, shapes 
and plates at $2.50 and $2.90 per hundred— 
about half the prices then prevailing. The 
tonnage involved was 610,000. Similarly low 
prices were arranged for the tonnages of sheets 
and other material needed at once by the gov¬ 
ernment, this having been done in order that 
the mills to whom this business was assigned 
could at once proceed to fabricate the steel. It 
was understood, however, that this extremely 
low price was tentative and to apply only to this 
lot of material, since advancing costs made such 


137 



Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

prices ruinous. The amount saved to the 
government by this arrangement was not less 
than $15,000,000, as the current prices were 
much higher and demand from all sources was 
insistent. 

From that time forward the government 
and the industries worked together in the 
utmost harmony. Prices were advanced to 
meet rising costs and to provide for the 
enormous taxes the business was expected to 
pay. As the machinery of the government 
was perfected, the iron and steel men were 
permitted to practically manage their own 
affairs and they did this with such satisfaction 
to the government, that J. L. Replogle, Direc¬ 
tor of Steel Supplies, has paid them a rare 
tribute since the war closed. Perhaps, how¬ 
ever, the best evidence of the high ideals and 
genuine patriotism of the leaders in these in¬ 
dustries is to be found in the fact that they, 
alone among all the essential industries, were 
subjected to no arbitrary regulations and price¬ 
fixing, but were permitted to work out their 
own programs and virtually suggest the prices 
that should be paid for their product. 


138 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


It is true that certain basic prices were 
agreed upon between the War Industries Board 
and the General Committee of the Iron and 
Steel Institute and publicly announced by the 
President from time to time. These prices 
were maximum and were absolutely necessary 
to prevent what steel men call a “runaway 
market.” They formed the basis upon which 
the prices of finished products were computed, 
but the striking fact of the matter is that the 
computation was left entirely to the steel man¬ 
ufacturers themselves. As a result, there may 
be said to have been no actual fixing of prices 
in the industry during the war, as was the case 
in almost every other line producing material 
necessary to its successful prosecution. 

The only point upon which the Govern¬ 
ment exercised its right to dictate to the iron 
and steel manufacturers, or found it necessary 
to even insist on a line of procedure, was upon 
the question of prices to our Allies. Many 
steel manufacturers, realizing the enormous 
taxes they were expected to pay and finding 
that the prices established by their own com¬ 
mittees were very low when these taxes and 
mounting costs of labor and material were con- 


139 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

sidered, were of the opinion that a free market 
should be permitted so far as orders from abroad 
were concerned. The majority, however, ap¬ 
proved of the plan to regard our Allies in the 
same light as our own government in this 
respect, and, as a consequence, although it in¬ 
volved the loss of many millions of dollars in 
profits, equal prices prevailed. 

Largely because of the enthusiastic aid 
given by practical steel and iron men, many 
of whom abandoned their own business and 
voluntarily gave their entire attention to the 
government’s pressing problems at Washing¬ 
ton, a system of allocation for the industries 
was evolved which contributed much toward 
their efficiency in the nation’s defense. Under 
this certain classifications were established, 
and these were served by the industries in the 
order of their importance in the great task of 
winning the war. As a result, practically all 
the steel manufactured during the period of 
the war was devoted to war purposes. Of 
course much of it was not directly so used, 
but practically none of it was employed for 
any enterprise by which the conduct of the war 
was not vitally assisted. 


140 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

While the iron and steel manufacturers were 
confronted by a limited advance in prices, they 
continued to voluntarily raise the wages of their 
men until the earnings of these employes were 
the highest ever known. The successive wage 
increases during the three years ending October 
1, 1918, totalled considerably more than 100 
per cent. Not only that, but these companies 
bent every energy toward the financing of the 
war, buying heavily of Liberty Bonds and pro¬ 
viding the machinery by which their employes 
could purchase these bonds and pay for them in 
small installments. They led all other indus¬ 
tries in their contributions to the many funds 
raised for humanitarian work during the war, 
as did also the men and women employed in 
these industries. 

Because of the rapid advance of wages in 
all American industries, and particularly in 
the steel industry, the wage earners of Amer¬ 
ica were enabled to contribute to the financ¬ 
ing of the war in a manner that will always 
redound to their credit. In Germany, by a 
complicated and insidious arrangement of the 
governmental machinery, the cost of conduct¬ 
ing the war was met largely without the aid 


141 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


of popular subscriptions to war loans. These 
were taken to a great extent in that country 
by manufacturers and merchants, all of whom 
were permitted to profiteer almost without re¬ 
straint in order that their profits might be 
invested in government securities. The fright¬ 
ful injustice of this system would have been 
evident had Germany won, but as the event 
proved, enormous profits wrung from the Ger¬ 
man people that they might be invested in 
war loans have mostly turned to ashes, leaving 
the profiteers as poor as the people. In this 
country, while the corporations conducting the 
industries, and especially those conducting the 
iron and steel industries, invested heavily in 
government bonds, the greater portion of these 
were taken by the wage earners. No figures 
available for the whole country, but in certain 
districts employes in the last named industries 
purchased an average of more than $500 each 
in the four loans floated in 1917 and 1918. In 
one large steel plant in the Youngstown Dis¬ 
trict this average reached the astonishing total 
of more than $600 for each employe. 

A feature of the part played by the iron 
and steel industries of the United States in 


142 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


the winning of the war that should not be 
overlooked was the tremendous increase in pro¬ 
duction achieved during its period in the face 
of great obstacles and with the high purpose 
of providing the materials necessary for the 
triumph of our country and its allies. Much 
of this increase, particularly in certain lines, 
was made possible by new construction, under¬ 
taken in the face of costs that were so enormous 
as to be absolutely prohibitive if viewed in the 
cold light of business. The needs of the nation 
were, however, a compelling argument with these 
industries. In some cases, government aid and 
government guarantees were obtained, but this 
seems to have been only in such cases as the 
construction was of such a nature as to leave 
no prospect whatever of its utility after the war. 

Blast furnaces, open-hearth furnaces, plate 
mills, rolling mills and by-product coke plants 
costing many millions of dollars were hurried 
into existence long before their time and with¬ 
out regard to cost, in order that the steel, 
benzol and toluol needed might be made avail¬ 
able. As a result of this the steel production 
of the country had reached, at the time the 
armistice was signed, the amazing rate of 


143 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

47,000,000 tons per annum. Plate making 
capacity alone was increased during 1918 to 
7,500,000 tons per year. The output of shell 
steel was similarly augmented. The expense 
and uncertainty of investment, as well as the 
increased capacity that must certainly involve 
complications after the war, were apparently 
lost sight of. The steel industry had only one 
object—to produce as much steel as was physi¬ 
cally possible in every form in which it was 
needed to win the war. It succeeded in doing 
this to such an extent that government officials 
in a position to know all the facts have publicly 
declared that no part of the government’s tre¬ 
mendous program was halted or delayed at any 
time because of insufficient steel. No other 
industry has made a similar record in spite of 
the fact that human history contains no story 
of achievement such as the preparation of the 
United States for this conflict. 

The War is now over. There is reason to 
hope that history will never see such another. 
Without American steel, the cause of justice 
and humanity would have been temporarily lost, 
and the world must needs have stood at arms 
for generations to come. The American steel 


144 




J. LEONARD REPLOGLE 

Whose Rapid Advancement from the Position of 
Water Eoy at Cambria to that of Director of 
Steel Supply During Great War is One 
of the Illustrations of How Ability 
Wins in the Steel Business. 








Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

industry has, through its supreme effort in this 
most supreme cause, placed itself in a position 
from which it may find difficulty in extricating 
itself without a period of severe trial. But it 
will meet the problems that now face it as it has 
met others in the past with courage, energy and 
vision worthy of its majestic power and inspir¬ 
ing history. 

I cannot close this chapter, already much 
longer than it was intended to be withoutpresent- 
ing in concrete form the evidence of that spirit 
animating the men who direct the destinies of 
this, our greatest American industry. I shall 
do this by reprinting here two documents made 
public during the war. The first is an announce¬ 
ment publicly made by one of the leading inde¬ 
pendent steel companies in April, 1916, at a 
time when the soul of the nation was wrung 
by its desire for peace in the face of repeated 
outrages on the part of the German government. 
It was as follows: 

THE CALL TO DUTY 

In the crisis now confronting this country, 
the spontaneous and universal tenders of as¬ 
sistance made to our government form one of 
the most inspiring incidents in our history. 


146 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

The melting pot of American citizenship has 
done its work well. 

It is worthy of note that in the front rank 
of those who have tendered unreserved sup¬ 
port to the nation in a time of possible need 
are to be found the great industrial organiza¬ 
tions of the country. Many months ago this 
company furnished to the War Department a 
detailed statement of its equipment and re¬ 
sources, pledging these without reservation to 
the national defense. Many others followed the 
same course. 

These pledges still stand, awaiting only the 
call of the country for their redemption. The 
industrial organizations of America hold their 
patriotic obligations above all others—to be ful¬ 
filled first at any cost. This policy reflects the 
spirit and, in the highest sense, protects the in¬ 
terests, of both stockholders and customers, 
whose most solemn obligations and most funda¬ 
mental welfare are served by the perpetuation 
of our national safety and our national ideals. 

In the voluntary enlistment of our great 
industries for national defense, even before the 
people had been heard from, may be found 
a lesson for those who have been unwilling to 
concede to corporations the civic virtues they 
claim for themselves. These large aggrega¬ 
tions of capital, necessary to efficiently carry 
on the business of the country, have demon¬ 
strated that they are owned and directed by 
men who represent the highest type of citizen¬ 
ship, are animated by deepest concern for the 
national welfare, and are willing to make for 


147 




Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

that end sacrifices that represent the supreme 
limit of patriotic devotion. 

It is not unreasonable to hope that, out of 
the universal manifestation of these virtues 
brought about by the present situation, may 
come a better understanding among all our 
people, rich and poor, employer and employed. 
This would prove some compensation should 
peace, so ardently desired by all Americans, 
eventually become impossible. 

The second document referred to, which 
reads almost like an answer to the first, was 
signed by the executive officers of the leading 
steel companies in the United States, and by 
many of them posted in their works at the 
trying period, in 1918, when the hitherto un¬ 
dreamed of magnitude of the government’s war 
program became apparent and there seemed to 
be danger that, in spite of all that had been 
done, or all that could be done, it would be 
impossible to provide steel in sufficient quantities 
to carry out -this program and at the same time 
meet the urgent needs of the Allied nations. 
It is as follows: 


OUR PLEDGE 

For myself, my corporation or my firm, I 
pledge the prompt production and delivery of 
the largest possible quantity of material in 


148 







Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

all departments that is or shall be required 
by the United States Government for the ne¬ 
cessities of itself and its Allies, and agree that 
all other lines of business shall be subordinated 
to this pledge, and all this in accordance with 
the request of the War Industries Board. 

The executives who signed this pledge per¬ 
sonally asked their employes to join them in it. 
That both corporations and their employes kept 
faith is shown by the fact that during 1918 
American mills produced 42,212,000 tons of steel, 
and that of this practically every pound went, 
directly or indirectly, into the task of winning 
the war that has, let us hope, made the world 
safe forever for the weak and life better worth 
the living for all humanity. 


149 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRIES IN WAR 
WORK AND FINANCING 

The manner in which the whole American 
people responded to the call of country during 
the emergency arising from our entrance, with 
almost no previous preparation, into the most 
momentous struggle of all history, the World 
War of 1914-19, forms one of the brightest 
pages in the record of democratic government. 
The part played in this inspiring evidence of 
national strength and solidarity by the iron and 
steel industries was not less noteworthy than 
their contributions to the cause of civilization 
in the form of products necessary to win the war. 

The amount of steel contributed to the com¬ 
bined armies and navies of the Allied countries 
during the war cannot, of course, be stated with 
any degree of accuracy, but a conservative esti¬ 
mate made from the latest information at hand 
places this at the stupendous figure not less 
than 150,000,000 tons. Much of this was, of 
course, used indirectly for war purposes and a 
considerable portion of it consumed in this 
country. Nevertheless it was a part, in one 
form or another, of the vast machine by which 


150 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

the war was prosecuted to a successful conclu¬ 
sion. 

Fortunately it is possible to present the facts 

concerning the contribution made by the iron 

and steel industries in the form of men and money 

0 

more exactly than those in regard to the tonnage 
of steel supplied to our government and its allies. 
Through the kindness of the American Iron & 
Steel Institute, the following statistics have 
been furnished for this purpose. These figures 
are not entirely complete, but they embrace 
reports made by five hundred and sixty-eight 
steel companies in the United States, and in¬ 
clude all except a comparatively few and unim¬ 
portant concerns, statistics from which would 
not materially change the totals. 

These statistics have been arranged in three 
groups. The first shows the number of officers 
and employes of the companies reporting who were 
engaged in the service of the United State and en¬ 
rolled in regular organizations in the army, navy 
and aviation corps, together with the number who 
voluntarily engaged in auxiliary war work, in 
various organizations approved by the govern¬ 
ment. The second group gives the total sub¬ 
scriptions to Liberty Loans made by officers 


151 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

and employes of these companies, arranged so 
as to indicate the nature of the securities and 
the amount of each taken by corporations and 
their employes wherever possible. Third group 
gives in detail for fifty-six leading companies 
the number of men in service, the amount of 
securities purchased by companies and by em¬ 
ployes (or by both where this was not separated 
on the records), and the grand total of subscrip¬ 
tions and enlistments for these fifty-six com¬ 
panies and for all of the companies reporting, 
568 in number. 

It is worthy of note that in the group of 
fifty-six companies referred to above sent into 
the service more than 80 per cent, of the total 
enlisting, and at the same time subscribed about 
82 per cent, of the total amount invested in 
war securities. This group included no com¬ 
panies subscribing for less than a total of 
$2,000,000. More than thirty-three companies, 
in addition to these fifty-six, purchased securi¬ 
ties in excess of $1,000,000. A striking fact in 
this connection is the report by all of the fifty- 
six companies mentioned that their employes 
were 100 per cent, enrolled as purchasers of 
bonds during the war, as well as that the em- 




Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 

ployes of some of the smaller companies whose 
detailed statement could not be included here¬ 
with because of the necessity .for brevity, were 
among the largest buyers of both bonds and war 
savings stamps, considering their resources. 

Reference should be made also to the rela¬ 
tively large number of executives included among 
those who enlisted in the various branches of 
the service, as well as to the number of these 
who won special honor therein. An effort to 
secure information on this point for this article 
met with so much reluctance to have individual 
records made public that the idea of doing so 
had to be abandoned, but it is a fact that the 
number of rising young executives who laid 
down their tasks at the beginning of the war, 
and even before it actually begun, to go to the 
front was astonishingly large. 

The statistics following indicate that the 
iron and steel industries of this country contrib¬ 
uted 131,504 men to the service of the country 
during the war, and supplied funds to the amount 
of $691,585,812 for the prosecution of that 
struggle. It is a matter of deep regret that no 
adequate records have been kept by the greater 
number of companies concerning the contribu- 


153 


Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 


tions made by them and their employes to 
funds for war work, such as the Red Cross, the 
Y. M. C. A., the K. of C. and others. Compari¬ 
son of security purchases and war work contribu¬ 
tions by companies and their employes in the 
relatively few cases where accurate figures on 
this point are obtainable, indicates that the 
amount furnished for these forms of activity 
by the steel industry w T as in excess of ten per 
cent, of the amount invested in Liberty bonds, 
and that it was very nearly equally divided 
between the employes and the stockholders. 


o 

Z 

X 

X 

o 

as 

o 


Q 

Z 

< 

z 

o 

Pi 

M 

z 

< 

u 

t—t 

Pi 

w 

S 

< 

w 

ffi 

H 

X 

H 

£ 


pi 

< 

£ 

Q 

hJ 

Pi 

o 

£ 

w 

X 

H 

Z 

l-H 

U 

u 

M 

> 

oi 

U 

co 


Q 

w 

b 

w 

z 

z 

o 

u 

CO 

W 

z 

< 

p^ 

S 

o 

u 

pH 

o 

CO 

w 

w 

>1 

o 

Hi 

Ph 

S 

w 


Q 

Z 

< 

CO 

Pi 

w 

u 

l-H 

Uh 

o 

pH 

o 

Pi 

Pi 

p: 

X 

Z 


Pi 

< 

H 

hJ 

M 

Z 

< 


Pi 

o 


Pi 

> 

M 

Ph 

o 

< 

z 

I—I 

Q 

Pi 

O 

< 

o 

z 

Pi 

W 

Pi 

Pi 

£ 

O 

E 

£ 

Pi 

H 

X 

H 

l-H 

H 

co 

Z 

hJ 

Pi 

Pi 

H 

co 


oo O r(l r(l 

50 lO lO O 

»0 T* O io 

C> l-H y—t 


CO 


CO 


<u 


1 


u 


c 




3 


u 


O 


(D 

CO 


> 


<U 


.£ 






*■4-1 

(J 

aj 


T3 

0) 

50 



crj 


G 


50 




G 

<L> 


(L> 



u, 


0) 


<L> 


u. 




& 


O 




-G 


O 




-C 


a; 


(D 


4H 



P 

4-1 


4—1 

P 




4-J 


*4-» 




CO 


4-J 


G 

l-H 


CO 

G 




HH 


<D 

-G 

4-1 


CJ 

-C 

4-» 


.£ 


G 






<u 


<u 


4H 


4-» 


G 


G 


U 


<D 


CO 


co 


0 




u 


u 


a 


a 


<L) 


<D 


u. 


u. 


CO 


CO 


0 


OJ 






G 


*G 


oj 


cj 


a 


a 


£ 


£ 


0 


0 


u 


cj 


-C 


X! 


4-1 

G 

4-> 



.2 




*4-1 



<U 

4-> 

£ 

’> 

V 

4-> 

u 

u 

CTJ 

O 

O 

<D 

G 

50 

« 

C 

& 

con 

G 

J3 

G 

O 

u 

u 

aj 

CO 

T> 

CO 

i_ 


OJ 

O 

u 

>. 

G 

OJ 

>> 

pp-. 

a; 

^0 


^0 

u 

"a 

> 

a 

’> 

£ 

CT S 

c 

£ 

u, 

<D 

V 


OJ 

co 

03 

0 

T3 

>1 

G 

CTj 


G 

u 

2 

co 

£ 

co 

70 , 

u 

Uh 

u 

X 

<D 

ctS 

V 

3 

U 

ffi 

<U 

CJ 

E 

oS 

u 

O 

4H 

0 

O 

«-»-< 

X 


>» 

O 

u 

O 

'S 

0 

u 

a; 

u 

oj 

4H 

X) 




s 


s 


3 


3 


z 


z 



to 

a 


o 

a 

v 


m V 

*£ 

oS 

a 

£ 

o 

u 

co 

CO 

<D 

rG 


V 

V 
to 

JO 

*a 

£ 

<u 

T5 

a 


<u 

u 

o 


<D U 
rC O 


I ^ 

c< ■*-* 

fa <L> 
"a 


V V 
t> 


' o £ 

u , o 
5 « £ £ 

n- ~ S « 

P 


o • 

*a ! 


os 

£ 


V-H flj 

B-S 

V g 

h p 
o C 

co __ 

SST." 

e 2 - *- 

O V 


X 

o 

Ui 

-T—I f~~). 

° a 


Uh 

O — 

U G 

D O 

-r—i J_ 

o w m 
u <p rt Z 

> &3 
«>8 o 


c; 

-Q 

£ 

P 

G 


<D •— 1 


4-. V 

<u o +-» 


_ G . 

nt __, <3 

T3 

>> Jf-3 ^ 

h o 


•—I Ph 

0> V 

4-J N. 

OS 


~ o 

~ CO 


Ph 

<D 0> 

b >, > u 

I’E 

QJ —— U. 

w ^ O U 
> 6C > >> 

■ rH CO Ph 

to o .£ .2 
o~'c£ 
JZ cs * 
oj cs a g 

^ - P CvJ 

^ to ^ 

ctf a c h 

jh t; u O 
3 O P V 
U w > 

- «-5'S 

£.SO ^ 

^ « G 

CO l«-H >* H 

G u ^ 

03 q > 6 £) 

n *— cj 

6 > “ e 

8 S 

>,^30 

C Si 
« s'* o 

3 u P —• 
^ 03 a 


to *- 

G ^ 

■c-5 

3 O 
"O 

c 
o n 

ji t/i 

05 

>5 O 
u u 

.rttj 

’Bh 

rt Pi 

So 

>. .. 

U H 

3 .§ 

G *-» 

^ u 

g‘£ 

^ -G 
G ^ 

P4-1 

O 

o 

$?! 

50 2 

c £ 

<D 

GV D 

+J -M 

u O 
o > 

.b D 
T 3 T 3 

G co 
c; iD 
<U 

^ £ 

50 a 

.£ £ 

> o 

CTj v 
-C —4 

OJ 

co iL) 

CJ 4-» 

CO 

■S^j 

*-* G 

O ** 

&8 
u u 

1/5 Lh 
<u o 
<u 0 

>, CO 

o. >» 

F 2. 

<D Cl 

T 3 £ 

G 

cs — 

T 3 • 
G ^ 

CTJ 


<D 

u 

c 

O 


O 


a; 

u x 
^!£.2 

g 0 « 
- 

^ G G 

rt H 


<D 


G 

.2 

* 4 H 

^5 

T3 

cj 


u 0 

cS *-* 

isZ 

<U 3 

-c .S 


155 











SUBSCRIPTIONS TO LIBERTY LOANS BY OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES OF 568 COMPANIES 
CONNECTED WITH THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE. 


*■ 0 —• 

G 

2 o 
OH 


TJ 

CJ 

JO co *- 

• H ^ O 

U ^ CO 

n GJ % V 

rz on «« >, 

00 s el 

c- 0 P 

|3S 

C 


c 
w P 
o o 

*-*-< u 

o r2 80 
2 C cj 
£ u ^ 

o 

P'S, 
00 £ 
W 


OONOOdON 

05 

lOOCCiOO^H 


0<N®OOTl<0>tO 

00 

c4 to c4 OO o 

iO 

T^^coOcoOW 

CO 

•^qONWhh 

iq 

CO to *—< •*& 1^- 

T—H 

CO nWdH t-H 

05 

X H CM r-C 

CO 





• • . • • O I s * 


.O 


• • • • • 00 CO 

GO 

.NO 

iH 

.O <M 

»o 

; ; ; ; ; co *-» 


• • • • « 


• • • • • rl 






O O N» O O GO 

»o 

rHrHGOGOiO^-i 

OO 

©COTfrtOO fS 


iO (N (N O 00 N O 

CO 

HCD005 05CO +■» 

05 

05 lO O CO CO CO flj 

05 

o tP c<i ca •-< w 

»o 

03 CO iO 05 r}< 



05 




£ cj 

o .-2 
8 S 

p 

05 


G 

P 

O 

u 

cj 

< 

G 

a 

a 

£ 

£ 


o o o o o o 

T^iOONiOO^ 

t^^<ncdco»o ^ 
COofOvHCOCO o 

(NOONrHCO-^ «-» 
loeoocoioo qj 
05 oo co of of o 5 r JJ 

r^OiOOWN 03 

v-H 


o 


co 


€/^ 


G 

OS 

O 

►J 


0) 

x> 


G 

03 

O* 


CJ 52 
rO 


52 53 53 52 


h-h -o x: 

C '° U 

CO O H 

u CJ G ? Or. 

* 


a 

6 
CTJ 
4-> 

03 

CO 

T3 60 
: CJ c 
cG * *■< 
rp > 

b £ « 

o 

^ u <3 


TJ 

CJ 

JZ 


X> 

P 


G 

P 

O 

6 

oj 

CJ 

X3 


cS 

U 

X3 

U 

P 


T3 

G 

O 

cj 

CJ 


oJ 

£ 

n3 

<D 

-a 


X) 

p 


G 

P 

O 

£ 

o3 

u 

CJ 

~G 

•4-> 

CJ 

*C 

£ 


G 

P 

O 

CJ 

o 

03 

CO 

CJ 

CJ 

'a 

£ 

cj 

T3 

G 

ctf 

4-J 

G 

P 

O 

cj 

cj 

o3 

G 

o3 

a 

£ 

o 

cj 


>> 

U 


03 

a 

CJ 


u, 

O 

a 

cj 

u 

u. 

cj 

T3 

G 

CJ 


03 

X3 


o3 

u. 

H3 


CJ 

X3 


£ 

o 


CJ 

CJ 

jo 

"a 

£ 

CJ 

T3 

CJ 

■M 

a 

£ 

CJ 

X 

CJ 

•*-» 

G 

CJ 

£ 

G 

G 

CJ 

> 

O 

O 

CJ 

X3 


CJ 

o3 


G 

O 

cj 

<3J 

60 


oj 

^G 

-G 

U 

IS 

& 


G 

03 

'a 

60 

G 


03 CJ 


u "O 
J2 u 

^ CO 

P 03 
G cj 

2 U 

G CJ 

_ "P 

CJ 


G 

oS 

a 

£ 

£ 

* 


G 

a ° 
a 4-1 

S-T3 
O o 
U 


U 




£-0 
” w 
T3 O 

a c 

CTJ 4_) 

G 

g.SP 
•- 6 


u. G 
CJ 03 

'g^S, 

^ CJ 


o cj 

U. o 
CJ 

JZ G 

G cj 
PXJ 
£ oj 

< % 

•>■ »-G 




u 

O 

o 

■*-» 

G 

u, 

P 


CJ 

u 


o3 
CJ 

p: 

60 

p 

o 


G 

CJ 

£ 

G 

i_ 

CJ 

> 

o 

O 


CJ 

-C 

•M 

a 

CJ 

u 

X 

CJ 

co 

G 

o3 

O 


S a: 

O 

^ o 


G 

o3 

a 

£ 

o 

u 

60 

G 


T3 

G 

o3 

G 

O 


O g 
tG & 

« CJ 

b S 

CJ *G 
> *-» 
CJ co 

cj £> 


CJ 

CJ 

a 

6 

CJ 

^ ; 

«.! 


G 

03 

a 

£ 

o 

CJ 

60 

G 


G 
03 

a 

£ p 

o 3 

U o 

fl) o3 

^ P 
G 
o3 

£ 

p 13 

3, 4j 

CT 4-> 
CJ co 

G 
o3 


-T3 

CJ 

+-> 

co 


£.£« 
CJ u 
CJ u 
t r; co 
6G X) 
O 3 
w 

XJ CJ 

CO 

CJ CJ 
HD -G 
03 ^ 

6*s 

S CX 

> CJ 
co 

r-> CJ 
G u. 
03 CJ 

CO 

>,T3 
i~> u 

o o 

tJ 8 

> » 


G 
CJ 

I £ 

»-• .bi 
£ 00 
o .S 
O "O 

0) S 

_c —< 

^ V 
CO JP 
4-J •*-> 

G 

32 13 
a ^ 
u. ^ 
cj O 
-G G 
-*-> 

O cS 


o3 
U 


4 P 

a 

4-J 

P 

o 

CJ 

4P 


CJ CJ 
CO +_1 
JP 03 

P G 
co j 3 

>>U 

c o 

CTJ 


X* 

G 

ctf 

X3 


156 




























PO 

o 

Z 

cu 

D 

O 

tt 

O 


O 

H 

O 

z 

M 

Q 

P6 

O 

u 

u 

< 

Q 

W 

o 

z 

< 

P 

P 

< 

w 

H 

P 

H 

HH 

H 

c/o 

Z 


z 

o 


W H 

ffi id 


H 

Z 

M 

Q 

W 

H 

Z 

p 

CO 

P 

aZ 

P 


P 

U 

CO 

m 

P 

CO 

P 

O 

H 

Z 

P 

O 


p 5 

« < 

co 

P 

M 

z 

<3 

Oh 

S 

O 

z 


H 

Oh 


OZ 

o 

Oh 

co 

P 

HH 

< 

H 

p 

Q 


O T3 
— C 
no«S 

— O *j ^ <u 
n* ‘Z G U - >> 

O.&g §-2 

» u E c 
os<3 op 
3 U 
co 


o CT3 
■_,P ca v 

e_ O* . 

3 dP'j" S 

xS 

3 o e” 

<3 » u G 
-°-2p 
3 p 

co 1 ^ 


U 

O eo 
. <D 
>% V 
C >s 
ctS O 
<o cvg 

-|6 

CjW 


o o o 

OlOO 

°l° ^ 

O GO CO 

IOIOO 

y—i O0 tO 
00 CO 

00 


oooooooooooooooooooooo 

*0 O O O O iO iO o O O O O O O O O lO lO lO O tQ iO 
NCOONOJ^tDOHNO^MOONNCDOiON'H 

conconcTocoocccooio^ o go ooVm n w ooo 

05hNCOiCNC0000500500NcD0003^030 
OCOO^H(NO»G05»OC3COOO^CO(NNHNCOW 
‘ CO o W CD CD CO O 00 N N N N N CO O eo co co o lO lO 

C^l ^ H l—t rH r-H r-H 






.0 







. . 



. 0 












.0 







. . 



. 0 












•00 

‘rtT 







• • 



. 0 
‘.00 












; C£5 







I 1 



• 












•tjT 







• • 



. cd 









-o 

^ ^ (/) C/3 

cxi ^ to a 

2 ‘C^ a g 

° p> 5 

e.s u £ 2 

<^°co^ 

CO 


H3 

4-» <u 

a ^ 

g'G 
o <j 

S C/5 1 

JO 
"U 3 
CO 


a; h-» 
a) a 
u >> p 

O JO ° 

" O. y 

6<3 

p 


oooooooooo 

OiCOioO»oOOiO>0 

lOOrHOCOTtOOJ^O 

6 O CO N N fC (N oT O N 
oo<oOi-<oiotoi^T-H 
COCONlOCOr-l’^r-lC^OO 

d d d n o d rj? n d •“< 

CO <M <M 


o o o o o 
o o o o o 

1H(NO^CO 

cdooo idoo 

05 000CO 
GO CO 

y—l Ol r-H C^l r—( 


o o o 

OlOlO 

I s - I s - r-H 

cdr^rd 

r-H t-H t"— 

^ o ^ 


. o o o 
. IO »o o 

. CO ^ 

■odd 

‘ C^> -Tf ^ 

‘HIOC5 


CQ C<l CO -C^HH 


-a 

4—• <D 

C -Q 

H Ih 

OuO 

6 C/5 *H-» 

ro 

an 


S c 

C3 pH 

a o 
g o 
o i! 


o o o o 
o o o o 

^T}<000 

oVod 

ICIOOOO 

OCONiO 

cdco*d»d 




oooooooooooo 

lOOOOOO^OOOOO 
O O O © IO o © o © 

d d o o' d o' o *d d o' cd o" 
C^QOOO^H^OOCSJOOOQO 
COPOCC^iOrHriOOCOO 

od^-HCiodciOtdid^doiot'^ 


o o o o o o o 
o o o »o IO o »o 
O O IO o oo o 

cS o id*''- *doo 

LO »C C5 iO *H 
05 (N N rH IO rH CO 
co ^ cd cd cd cd 


*-*-< T3 

o a 


<u 

P2> 

s 


* s « b s 8 

E ^ 


O U G 


--- 3 3 U 

> 


COCONOTt<iO'H(NNrH 

^MOOCOOOOIOOOO 

CDONCDiONOOOOOO 

CO »-H 


Tf<rt<CO(M^COOiOO^iONCOiO 

0(NTt<COOOOOO^OOJOO(MCO 

Xf ^(NlOOOrHNNNN^OJrH 


C3 -C5 


C3 


z 

<3 

Qh 

^-H 

o 

u 


G 

• 2 o 

G'wU 

D. « 
u u u 
o o V 

u £•« 

-o« 
^CJ z. 

+*/ , CTJ 

an o>w 

CJ ^ 

e/5 4-> ___ 

£co 2 

2 6 
an v 

T3 (D 

U--H 

•M PC 


O 

u 


o 

u 


T3 


>»rO 

a 

oP ag go 
CJOco gu |u 


. - c >, 

X c 

5S"«c 
g.6 o-c 


do 

c 
o 


c V 
PM 


- U « O 

Sjs "p 

jwtfl 

** 2^-0 

03 5 > 3 

0*2 a 


gP^Pm 

® M 3. 1-C 60 "c C 

3 w 0 51 aj u G ca 
J o «c H o 3 n u 
— ca 1- ^> <u <u j’C^'y'C 

S.P4 >ppq<3 u “ > v 

? o r. ti . c 5 u g 


3 

o 

CO 

G 

o 


o 

p 

d 

*o 


« 5 ct 3 a g <j >0 . p z b a 

Z S ^ P ^ O ea P i<h a3 k?H 3 

SX>O^P>^pZSp^:<&hP< 


^pj 

p oj G 
03 CX o o 

a sP . . 

c ia^j8 

cd r 1 ^ _ d ^ 

>r^ >, « «D « „ 

3 

33-O A ca-Qp.2 

i - ! e| g.a 1 

° “coPPM< 


s* 

a a 

Si 

qEo 


ta 


157 


Shenango Furnace Company 














































































GROUP NO. 3—(Continued) 




CO N Q (N (N O (N GO 1 (N H CO th < 
^NNOfNNrHCOCOCiNtO'N’ 


iO 


O 

o 

IO 

lO 

o 

o 

o 

o 

CM 

0 

10 

10 

10 

10 

0 

03 

CM 

1—1 

CM 

»o 

t'- 

CO 

CO 

p- 


o 


03 

1>- 

H 

10 

CO 

p- 


0 

CM 

10 

00 

o' 

H 

rd 

CM 

id 

cd 

td 

co" 

cd 

00 

03 " 

id 

rd 

• d 

cd 

00 

cm" 

'd 


id 

o 


03 

CO 

CM 



1-H 

o 


o\ 

CM 

CM 


00 

10 

10 

GO 

0 

00 

03 

oo 


r^. 

CO 


lO 


CO 

CM 

CM 

CM 

y—> 

1—1 

0 

0 

0 

03 

CO 

»o 

CM 

CM 

cm" 

cm" 

cm" 

cm" 

cm" 

cm" 

cm' 

cm" 

cm" 

cm" 

CM 

cm" 

cm" 

cm" 

CM 

id 

»d 

1-H 


. O 
. O 

• O 

* id 
; o 

. CO 


O CM 

»o »—< 


oo 
o o 
00 o 
tdo 
o o 

1-H CM 




. cO 

■ CM 

■ 03 


1—I CO 
CO 03 

cm td 
03 CM 

0C> 


o o 


ooooooo g_ 

I0»00c50i00 k OlO 
CO CM CM O CO lO ©. C 03 IO 

coihoTooioTo ^cdrd 

CM t-h CO OO lO *-» 03 +JOOCM 
♦h CO CO CO N lO W 0(0 03 

T-H 1—t CM T-H Z 


. O O O O O O 

. IO lO lO ‘O o o 

.TtN(NCMCMTf 

'co^wdioio 

'OOiOOOON 
• co co cm co i—t 


ooooooooooooo 

I00000000i0»0i000 
COO^ONOOrtlOCOHrtGiO 
ioidrdod*d©odidtdcdo3oTtd 
CM GO 03 CO CM CM CM 03 03 03 
CO 03 CM CM t'- 03 03 t''* CM OO CO 


OQOOOOOOOO 
©©©OOiOiOiOOiO 
0 10 0 10 00^^0^ 
OcOOCMCMOCMOOOCO 
03 CO Tt^ 00 CO iO CM CO lO CO 
^^hCOOOOCMh^ih 

d'cdcM^CMCOCMCOCMCM 


oooooooooooooooooooo 

OOiOOI>.OOOiOOOOOiOOOOOiOO 

OONOCOMCOONOOOOOOOOOCONCM 

o n n o co <n <n o d o o »o d d d o' go h oo ^ 

lO’HiOOiOCMXOQOiO^CCNCOOO’-HGOioN 

CCCOCMNriONcO^^THOiOHOOMCONrHW 

CM CM CM t-h »-h CM CM r—t CM CM t— i i—i rn t-h t— i t—i t—i 


10 

sH 

I s * O 

0 

03 

CO 

10 

00 

CM 

00 

1—< 

CM 

10 

CO 

CM 


CO 

00 

CM 

0 

CO CO 

00 

00 

0 



CM . 

T* 

CO 

CO 

CO 



T* 

03 

10 

c 


00 

1—1 

CO 

1 —H 

0 

03 

01 



03 

0 CO 

»o 

CM 

CO 

CM 

CO 

10 . 

co 0 

10 

CO 

T-H CM 

CM 



Tf 

vH 

CM 

CM 

CM 

CO 

co 

I - 

10 

TJ< 

’— 1 

CM 


CO 

CM 


10 

CM 

03 

CO 

CM . 

OO 


•'co 
lO * 

o »o 
t-h CM 


£ 


60 

C 


>> » c 
c • - 
oj u 

t. Q.'O ns is 
g C_CGO 
COg M 
* 5c C-^ (in £5 

W H ID «J 




c ^ 
^ <5 « 
* a 14 
c a 

E 


>>1 

o 


"•Cr", >>,-X CO “ O 

E oO « £ a o g c (j 'SO 

oO c S-.Q 6^o 2= a - 


>> 

S ° c 

aO cs 

E 5 §■ 


<U c/} ■*-> r/~> C C ,y co >%r/^ 4-» 


u ^ 
1 ar ^ 


V fl) 
<U _ ^ 
V 


G 

' CXJ 

a 

S 

£ 

G 

O 


nJ 
u 

*U 

<u 

6 

d 

• S °rl 

>> 0.6 O 

c GO » 
a 3 o Jr 
° 

H tf) 3 


.S.S.jM V. 1 -hrt fc! cn'5 

c5 qj cj (—« -h w —_ - i—. — r ) i—( l 

0= u ^.tlnSr ><« SSCH *3 & 2 — u 


G 

OS 

a 

E 

o 

o 


c ira 

rt' — 
O. vs 

E.a 

o c 

.si 

13 U 

fl) Ui 

J ^ 

10 O 

u u 

O O 


O O 

Hh 




0 10 

10 

10 co 

00 

t-o 

r-- 

t-T id 

<d 

T-H 00 

03 

03 CO 

CM 

-d 0 

id 

O Tt< 


CM 

CM 




0 0 

0 


T—1 

0 10 

co 

CM 00 

0 

00 00 


03 


cd d 

t— i 

00 

CO 

CO 





T3 

G 

cj 

0> 

> 

V 

u 


c 

o 


JD 

G 

C/3 

co 

O 

U 

>, 

*a 

S 

w 

G 

cj 

CO 

'<u 

*G 

c3 

a 

s 

£ 


o 

no 

u 

G 


C 

<U 

> 

• •—« 

60 
4—> 

o 

G 

G 

.2 

*4-» 

Oj 

6 
u 
O 
-*—< 
G 


O 

u 

V 

o 

2 


CJ X 
*-> —■ 

S 5J 


o 

2 




158 














































































INDEX 


Adam. 

American Industrial Commission. 

American Iron and Steel Assoc. 

American Iron and Steel Institute. 

American Pig Iron Assoc. 

American Society of Mechanical Engineers 

American Tobacco Co. 

Armes, Miss. 

Bacon, Robert. 

Bailey, Edward. 

Baker, George F. 

Baruch, Bernard M. 

Bay State Iron Works. 

Bell, Sir Lowthian. 

Bessemer, Sir Henry. 

Bessemer Pig Iron Assoc. 

Bethlehem Steel Co... 

Block, L. E. 

Boston Iron Works. 

Bowron, James. 

British Iron and Steel Assoc. 

Buffington, E. J. 

Burden, J. A. 

Butler, Joseph G., Jr. 

Cambria Iron Works. 

Campbell, J. A. 

Carnegie, Andrew. 

Carnegie Steel Co. 

Chisholm, Henry. 

Clarke, E. A. S. 

Clifford, Alfred. 

Cochran, James. 

Converse, Edmund C.:. 

Cooper, Hewitt & Co.. . 

Corey, William E. 

Creusot Works. 

Dalton, H. G. 

Detmold, C. E. 


.1C8 

.97, 129 

.68, 78 

.. . .78, 80, 92, 136-7, 151 

.78 

.70 

.103 

.48 

.102 

.in port. 121 

.102 

.136 

.70 

.50, port. 51 

.8, 58, 70 port. 11 

.78 

.53, 94 

.in port. 121 

.62 

..48 

.50 

.in port. 121 

.in port. 121 

port., front., in port. 121 

.60, 69 

. . . .port. 67, in port. 121 
. .84, 86, 91, 94, port. 85 

.24, 86 

.port. 135 

.in port. 121 

.102 

..5 

.102 

.70, 72 

.90, 102 

.94, 113 

.in port. 121 

.17 








































Dickson, W. B.102 

Dobson, James.5 

Dodge, William E.102 

Durfee, William F.68-70 

Edenborn, William.102 

Everett, Philo M.40 

Farrell, Jhmes A.76, 90, 102, port. 77, in port. 121 

Federal Steel Co.82 

Felton, Samuel M..port. 21 

Field, Marshall.102 

Filbert, W. J.102 

Firmstone, William.30 

Frick, Henry Clay.32, 91, 102, port. 33 

Fritz, John.port. 35 

Gary, Elbert H.80, 82, 84, 86, 90, 95,102,105,136-7, port 81, in port. 121 

Gayley, James. 102 

Griscom, Clement A.102 

Hewitt, Abram S.102 

Holley, Alexander L.69, port. 131 

Hunt, Robert W.70, port. 65 

Huntsman, Benjamin.114 

Huston, A. F.in port. 121 

Jones, Benjamin F.port. 63 

Jones, William R. (Capt. Bill).46, 54, 56, port. 55 

Kelly, William.6, 8,10,12, 58, 60, 70, port. 7 

Kennedy, Big Jim.port. 29 

Kennedy, Julian.45, 93, port. 46 

Kerr, D. G.102, in port. 121 

King, Willis L.in port. 121 

Kitchener, Lord.128 

Krupp Works.94, 113 

Leet, George K.in port. 121 

Lindabury, Richard V.102 

Luke, A. F.102 

Lukens Iron & Steel Co., Rolling Mill.illus. 26 

McCleary, James T.in port. 121 

McKinley, William.74, port. 75 






































McKinley Memorial. 

Mather, Samuel. 

Meissner, C. A. 

Moore, William H. 

Morgan, J. P. 

Morgan, J. P., Jr. 

Morrell, Daniel J. 

Morrison, Thomas. 

Mound Builders. 

Mushet, Robert. 

Napoleon. 

Noah. 

Oglebay, Norton & Co.. . . 

Otis, Charles., Sr. 

Park, James, Jr. 

Peabody, Francis H. 

Pennsylvania Steel Works 

Penton, John A. 

Perkins, George W. 

Phipps, Henry. 

Phipps, John S. 

Potts, J. T. 

Ream, Norman B. 

Reed, James H. 

Reid, Daniel G. 

Reis, John. 

Replogle, J. Leonard. 

Richards, F. B. 

Roane Iron Co. 

Roberts, Percival, Jr. 

Rockefeller, John D. 

Rockefeller, John D., Jr.. . 

Rogers, Henry H. 

Russell, Thomas. 

Schiller, W. B. 

Schwab, Charles M. 

Sheadle, Jasper. 


.76 

.102, port. 79 

.93 

.102 

.84, 86, 90,102, port. 83 

.102 

.port. 59 

.102 

.115 

.12, 60 

.116 

.108 

.41, 43 

.port. 127 

.port. 57 

.102 

.69 

.introd. 

.90, 102 

.102 

.102 

.70 

.102 

.102 

.102 

.102 

.138, port. 145 

.94 

.52 

.102 

.102 

. . ..102 

.102 

.3 

.94 

86, 90, 94, 102, port. 87 
.94 







































Shearson, Edward. 

Sherman, Gen. William T. 

Siemens, C. W. 

Smith, Charles E. 

Smith, E. A. 

Stackhouse, Powell. 

Standard Oil Co. 

Steele, Charles. 

Sterling Iron Works. 

Stetson, Francis L. 

Swank, James M. 

Taft, William H. 

Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. R. Co. 

Thayer, Nathaniel. 

Thomas, David. 

Thomson Works, Edgar. 

Thothmes. 

Titus. 

Tod, David. 

Topping, J. A. 

Trimble, Richard. 

Tubal Cain. 

United States Steel Corp. 

United States Supreme Court. . . . 

Vespasian. 

Ward, Capt. Eber B. 

Ward, James. 

Ward, James, & Co. 

Ward, William. 

Washington, George. 

Washington, Capt. Lawrence. . . . 

Wellman, Samuel T. 

Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Co. 

Westerman Iron Co. Rolling Mills 

Wharton, Joseph. 

Wheeler, Andrew. 

Widener, Peter A. B. 

William, Kaiser. 

Winslow, Griswold & Holley. . .. 
Winsor, Robert. 


. 102 

.52 

.70 

.. .port. 73 

.48 

. . port. 123 

.103 

. 102 

.64 

. 102 

48, port. 49 

.76 

.50, 52 

. 102 


.port. 15 

. . . . ..46 

.108 

.Ill 

.port. 13 

. ... in port. 121 

.102 

. . ..108 

50, 80-91, 99-105 

.103 

.Ill 

.port. 39 

.8, 58, 62, port, g 

.1,5 

.3 

.48 

.48 

. .70, 72, port. 71 

.70 

.illus. 9 6 

.port. 5 3 

.port. 61 

.102 

.97, 128 

.69 

.102 






















































































